


Clandestine Affairs

by acchikocchi



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Spy, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-01-16
Updated: 2011-10-20
Packaged: 2017-10-14 20:25:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 59,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/153133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acchikocchi/pseuds/acchikocchi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cesc is just a normal guy living a normal student life, until his flat blows up. Secret agent AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Endless gratitude to [meretricula](http://meretricula.livejournal.com/), [nahco3](http://nahco3.livejournal.com/), [winterspel](http://winterspel.livejournal.com/), and [anamuan](http://anamuan.livejournal.com/) for the very helpful feedback. :)

Later, Cesc would never quite believe how it all started.

All he'd been thinking of, hurrying back from his last lecture, was how much packing he had to do before returning home to Barcelona in two days. He wasn't expecting to turn onto the rundown little street where he rented a room and see what appeared to be the entire population of his building milling around in front of it. He wasn't expecting the two vans emblazoned with a garish "Abramovich Gas & Electric" logo, or the stocky man in blue coverall standing on the front step with a forbidding expression.

And he definitely wasn't expecting to see his tiny, white-haired Barcelonan landlady two inches from the man's face, giving him an emphatic piece of her mind.

"Mrs. Riera?" he said, half-disbelievingly, when he'd fought his way to the front of the crowd and put a hand on her shoulder.

Mid-gesticulation, she peered up at him through an ancient pair of glasses, gasped, and immediately latched onto his arm. "Cesc!" she exclaimed. "Cesc, tell this man he must let me inside!"

"What's going on?" he asked, looking from his landlady to the guard dog and back.

The man's eyes moved over Cesc. He said nothing. Mrs. Riera said in Catalan, nearly quivering with outrage, "These pigs made us evacuate the building and no one will tell us why fools, they're a gas company, do they think we are stupid? And Honey is inside all alone and terrified."

Cesc suppressed the face he desperately wanted to make. He liked lapdogs as much as the next guy, but Honey - squeaky, slobbery, completely hairless - was more rat than dog. "That's, um, terrible," he said, without conviction.

"It's an outrage! My poor darling, crying all alone in the dark - " She whirled back to the man and resumed her appeal, forgetting in the process to switch back to English. "Listen to me, you piece of - "

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Cesc interrupted quickly. He put an arm around Mrs. Riera's shoulders. "Come on, let's go talk where it's quieter. You can tell me the whole story." He held his breath. After a minute, Mrs. Riera nodded, and Cesc gently but firmly led her away from steps.

Sorry, he mouthed over his shoulder at the sucker stuck at the entrance. The man watched them go, not a flicker of acknowledgement in his impassive expression.

"Honey - " Mrs. Riera started as soon as they came to a stop, with a wobble in her voice that presaged tears.

"Honey's going to be fine," Cesc said. He lowered his voice. "Listen, we could keep talking with that guy all day and probably get nothing for our trouble except a restraining order. Or..." He paused for effect. "Or, I could slip in from the back and get Honey myself. Quietly. You know."

Mrs. Riera's eyes went wide. Cesc crossed his toes and prayed she wouldn't ask how exactly he was planning to accomplish this.

"Oh, Cesc," she said, "you're such a _good_ boy."

Cesc squirmed. "It's nothing," he said. "Really." She looked on the verge of tears again, so he said, "Okay, I better go now. I'll be right back with Honey, okay?"

She nodded and patted his hand; then, after Cesc cleared his throat, released him from her iron grip.

He drifted away through the crowd toward the edge of the building, where he glanced around and, in what he hoped was an unobtrusive fashion, slipped through the gap between the two identical blocks of flats.

In the alley, the crowd's restless hum was barely audible. Cesc surveyed the back side of the building. There was his window - fifth over, second up. He felt a pleasantly familiar jolt of adrenaline. This, he'd done a million times.

Against the brick wall, directly under his window, stood a rusting metal dumpster. From behind it, Cesc retrieved a long wooden pole that strongly resembled a broom handle in a previous life. He tossed it on top of the dumpster lid and hauled himself up after it. The accompanying clatter echoed hollowly down the alley.

Many nights of practice had made Cesc fairly expert at locating the decaying notch in the wood of the window frame into which he lodged the pole. Oh-so-carefully, he levered it upwards. There was a brief resistance, and the window lurched up in its frame. Cesc permitted himself a silent cheer.

He dropped the pole and bounced lightly on his toes. One short leap and his outstretched hands caught the windowsill; after a moment of scrabbling, his right foot found a toehold against the edge of an uneven brick. He took a deep breath and pulled upward with all his strength. This time his left foot found purchase as he got one elbow hooked on the sill. Another heave; now one arm was all the way over the sill and the other braced against it, and within seconds Cesc was grinning as he wriggled through the window into his room.

Sometimes Cesc felt a little guilty about sneaking around under his landlady's nose, but Mrs. Riera would probably faint dead away in the middle of the kitchen if she knew how late he stayed out. And what she'd do if she knew _how_ he was getting back inside all those nights he told her he was staying over at a friend's place, he didnt want to know. Everyone was happier this way, really.

Even as he got to his feet and dusted his hands off, he could hear a barrage of high-pitched yaps from the hall. The second he opened the door, he was assaulted by a manic hairless cannonball aimed at his shins, wriggling and yelping and doing its best to absorb itself into Cesc's legs.

"Okay, okay," Cesc said, grinning in spite of himself. "I get it, you like me." He crouched down and picked up Honey, who immediately began slobbering all over his hands. "I know. I'm delicious. Come on, let's get going. You owe one, mutt."

As he stood up, he heard a sound that sounded an awful lot like the rattle of a doorknob.

Cesc went still.

The rattle grew louder. Honey yipped. "Shh," Cesc whispered, and, as quietly as he could, moved forward into the hall.

They weren't in a _really_ bad part of the city, but it was no playground, either. Cesc edged up to the entryway and held his breath -

The door swung open and revealed a dark-haired man in a blue coverall bearing the legend ABRAMOVICH G&E.

"Oh," said Cesc, and for just a minute relaxed, before he remembered he wasn't supposed to be there.

The man was perfectly still, except for the movement of his eyes from Cesc to Honey and back again. He didn't speak; it appeared the sight of Cesc had dumbfounded him.

"Um," Cesc said, and cleared his throat. "Ha ha. I just came back in to pick up my landlady's dog... Sorry, I know we're all supposed to be out of here." No reaction. "I totally won't get in your way, I'm just about to leave again. Don't worry, she doesn't bite."

The man still said nothing. Something in his expression made Cesc uneasy.

"Well," Cesc said, awkwardly. "I'll just - be going now. Okay. Bye."

He swiveled on his heel and retreated - with dignity - to his room. He could feel the man's eyes on his back the whole way. Safely inside, he held Honey up at eye level and made a face at her.

"Five whole months of coming and going," he said to a panting tongue, "and _now_ someone catches me. Real smooth. You better hope they don't report me for trespassing in my own room. I'm not getting arrested my last week in London for you."

Honey barked and tried to lick his face.

"Yeah, yeah," he said. "That's what they all say. Okay, we better get a move on."

He heard the door open and close, and then voices too muffled to make out. Wincing, he tucked Honey under one arm and hurried over to the window. With his free hand, he jammed it up further, so that he could sit on the sill without relinquishing his charge.

He leaned over and eyed the distance to the dumpster below. He'd never done the drop with live cargo before.

The voices were getting louder and more agitated. Cesc could hear clearly enough now to tell they weren't speaking English, or Spanish. Or Catalan.

He didn't want to wait around to identify whatever it was. "Ready?" he said to Honey, and without waiting for an answer, eased himself off the windowsill.

He landed feet-first on the dumpster with a massive ringing clatter, weight driving him down into a crouch. He held it for a split second before toppling over, and as his arms instinctively flapped for balance, Honey wriggled free, bounded to the ground, and scurried away down the alley and out of sight.

"Honey!" Cesc shouted helplessly, too late. The only response was a distant yip.

He groaned. "Great. Just great." He hoped she'd run off to follow Mrs. Riera's scent, or she probably _would_ get mistaken for a giant rat and - Cesc didn't want to think about it.

He rolled over on his stomach and leaned over the edge of the dumpster, fishing for the pole. He'd better tell Mrs. Riera about the workers in her apartment, or she'd probably see their footsteps and think it'd been burglars after all. He glanced idly upward. The voices, at least, had stopped, or quieted enough to be inaudible even through the open window.

Just as the thought flitted across his mind, there was a hoarse shout, and then a sudden, eerie silence.

For some reason, Cesc went still. The back of his neck prickled.

Something told him, _Get down_.

He hesitated -

The blast of force and heat threw Cesc to the concrete before the deafening roar even penetrated his ears. For a moment, his body was empty of both breath and thought; he was a mass of nothing suspended in ringing blackness.

He snapped back to full consciousness as pain exploded in shoulder. Dizzy, he gasped for air and nearly choked at the vise crushing his chest. He couldn't see; there was something heavy pinning him down. His head was throbbing so hard he couldn't think. He coughed, managing a shallow, painful breath, and the throbbing multiplied.

He could hear the crackle of flame, and running footsteps, and shouting in - Spanish? That couldn't be right. Then several sharp cracks that sounded almost like gunshots.

Cesc realized, a split-second later, that they _were_ gunshots.

Then he blacked out.

  


He came to to the sound of slow, crunching footsteps.

He was lying face down, cheek scraping against the concrete. His shoulder was a blaze of pain. He tried to open his eyes, only to realize they were open, and everything was dark.

Cesc groaned pitifully.

The footsteps came to an abrupt stop.

A light voice said, "Who's there?"

Cesc's tongue, when he tried to move it, was thick and clumsy. He made another indistinct sound.

There was the sound of a breath, sharply indrawn, and then a hollow scraping rattle. Several thuds seemed to echo right above Cesc's head, and he flinched.

"Is someone under there? Can you hear me?"

Cesc licked his lips with a dry tongue. "Yeah," he said. This time, the sound emerged more or less as he intended, if hoarse.

"You're with me, good. Keep talking to me, okay? Are you injured? Can you feel your hands and feet?"

With effort, Cesc flexed first each foot and then each hand. The movement set his shoulder screaming again, and it took him a minute to answer.

"Yeah," he forced out, breathlessly. "Can't... see anything."

"You will in just a minute. I promise. Okay - I need you to hold really still, all right?"

"Sure," Cesc mumbled. It wasn't like he was going anywhere soon.

There was the scraping rattle again and then a rumble of sounds like a building crashing down directly above him. Cesc couldn't help flinching again, which sent a fresh jolt of pain through his shoulder and ribs.

Then the world was suddenly flooded with light. Cesc blinked furiously. For a moment he could see nothing but a blur of color; then, as his vision cleared, it resolved into kaleidoscope of shattered glass and smashed bricks.

"Better?" the voice asked, nearer now. A pair of grey-clad legs knelt in Cesc's field of vision.

"Yeah," Cesc repeated. "Better."

"Good," the voice said. "Sorry, I'm just going to - " A light hand ran over his shoulderblades and the small of his back and then skimmed down each of his sides, briefly pausing at his hips, calves, and ankles. Cesc's head was clearing by the second, enough that he had the hazy impression it was a strange way to check for injury. "Okay. Good. I'm going to turn you over now to check for any further injuries, is that all right?"

"I can do it," Cesc mumbled and, before the mysterious pseudo-EMT could do more than put a hand on his shoulder, made a surge of effort and rolled over on his back.

The white-hot spike of pain that seared through his shoulder took away his breath like a punch to the stomach. An involuntary gasp tore from his throat as tears sprung to his eyes, and the voice, sounding alarmed, said, "Careful!"

Cesc whimpered, and a hand grasped his good arm. "Careful," the voice said again, soothingly, and Cesc slowly forced his breathing even, until he could open his eyes again.

The face looking down at him was surprisingly young and sweet. A student volunteer? High-bridged nose, sharp cheekbones, narrow dark eyes, feathery brown hair - as Cesc's vision focused, he could see the stranger wasn't as young as he'd first looked, and that his white shirt and grey trousers were sharply tailored. Neither a student nor a medic, then; just a helpful passerby with basic knowledge of first aid. Only - Cesc struggled to sit up.

Only he was wearing what Cesc was pretty sure was a shoulder holster. And -

The stranger followed Cesc's gaze down to the deadly little handgun in his grasp.

"Oh," he said. "Yes." He didn't put it away.

Somewhere underneath the conviction that he was about to be arrested, killed, or both, a very small part of Cesc's brain said _whoa, awesome_.

The stranger's dark eyes were watching him closely. Heart pounding somewhere in the vicinity of his throat, Cesc swallowed dryly and met the man's gaze, willing himself not to look at the gun.

After what seemed like an eternity, the stranger appeared satisfied. He glanced around the alley and sat back on his heels. "How do you feel? What hurts most?"

"Chest. Shoulder."

"Right or left - oh." The stranger winced as he glanced at Cesc's left shoulder. "Okay, look at me again." Cesc did so, and the stranger fished a metal rod the size of a toothpick from his shirt pocket. Suddenly, there was a bright light shining in Cesc's eyes, flicking back and forth, and it was a moment before he realized what was going on.

"'M'not concussed," Cesc muttered, jerking his head feebly away; the stranger said, "But you could have been," and tucked the tiny flashlight away. He glanced around again and said, "All right. Want to try standing?"

With some effort, and more incoherent grunts, after a minute Cesc was wobbling on his feet, one arm braced against the stranger's shoulders. To his surprise, the stranger was at least a few centimeters shorter than he was.

"Okay?" the stranger asked.

"Yeah - _ow_ , fuck - not you, sorry." Cesc gritted his teeth and took a deep breath. "Okay. You can let go now."

"Are you sure?" the stranger said doubtfully.

"Yeah, just - slowly - yeah, like that - " The stranger slowly eased out from under Cesc's arm and Cesc swayed for an alarming minute before catching himself with a hand against - it was the dumpster, or what had been the dumpster.

For the first time, Cesc got a good look at the alley.

The narrow street was littered with a carpet of debris: bricks, broken glass, blackened metal. Small tongues of flame licked alongside what remained of the building. Where Cesc's room had been, a yawning hole gaped out on the street, and all Cesc could see inside was a black, sooty ruin.

"So," said the stranger, without a flicker in the helpful inflection of his voice, "why don't you tell me who you report to?"

Cesc said, intelligently, "Huh?"

The stranger's brows drew together. "You don't think I'm going to kill you, right? We'll make sure you get good medical care. It would really help with that if you answered a few questions."

"Kill me?" said Cesc faintly.

"And besides, you might as well get it over with before my partner shows up. He's sort of - " The stranger paused. "Quick-tempered."

Cesc's mind whirred, to no avail. "I really don't - do you mean, like, what department? Or clubs? I'm only here for a semester."

"What?" said the stranger.

"I'm supposed to go back to Barcelona this weekend." The throbbing spot on Cesc's jaw twinged, and he winced. "My sister's going to kill me when she hears about this."

"A semester?" the stranger repeated, and then, in a higher voice, "Are you a _student?_ "

Cesc nodded. "You can ask my landlady, she's probably out front. If she's okay. Were they okay? All the people out there?"

The stranger's mouth dropped open. "Shit," he breathed, and suddenly a voice all of two feet behind Cesc said, "Fuck, a witness?"

The stranger's eyes widened. "No, wait - "

As Cesc turned, there was a sharp stab of pain at the side of his neck, and then nothing.

  


* *

  
Cesc's cocoon was warm and fuzzy. He burrowed into it, away from the hot, distant throbbing that seemed to grow by the minute. Muffled sounds echoed from a long way off, like his ears were stuffed with cotton wool. The throbbing was right next to Cesc's head now; he realized, vaguely, that it was his own shoulder. The sounds grew louder, and finally he surrendered and let himself be dragged back to consciousness.

His whole upper body was on fire. He whimpered and bit down hard on his bottom lip.

"Watch out," a soft, familiar voice said. "Your shoulder was dislocated."

Cesc opened his eyes.

The room was narrow and high-ceilinged, like something out of an old hotel: black and white tiled floor, many-paned windows, whitewashed furniture. The curtains were drawn, and in a rickety chair between Cesc's bed and the door sat the slight stranger from the street. His holster was gone, and though he was looking at Cesc the pen in his hand was poised over an untidy sheaf of paper.

Cesc licked his lips. His voice came out as a hoarse croak. "'Was'?"

The stranger shrugged. "I popped it back while you were sed - unconscious." His expression took on a vaguely guilty cast. "I can't do anything about the cracked ribs, though. Sorry, we couldn't take you to a hospital."

The sight of the destroyed alley came rushing back. Cesc struggled up on one arm. "Was anyone else - hurt?"

"No," the stranger said without hesitation, to Cesc's immense relief. "No one except you."

Cesc nodded, and said a silent little prayer to his grandmother's god.

The stranger set his stack of papers on the floor. "Are you hungry?"

Cesc shook his head and said, "Thirsty."

The stranger got up. "I'll be right back," he said. "There's someone who wants to talk to you about what happened."

The police. Cesc nodded. He'd never been questioned before. Carlota would probably want to hear all about it.

The stranger closed the door behind him. Immediately, a low murmur rose outside the room. Cesc strained to hear, but couldn't make out anything. After a moment, the door opened and Cesc's stranger reentered, holding a thermos.

"Thanks," Cesc said and gratefully gulped down mouthful after mouthful of cool water, heedless of the thermos' metallic tinge

The stranger remained standing. "How are you feeling?"

Cesc shrugged his good shoulder. "Like shit." The stranger's expression did something funny. For some reason, his earlier words came back to Cesc, and suddenly Cesc remembered the sharp pain in his neck just before he'd gone under.

He frowned. "Just now, " he said, "when you were talking about hospitals. You weren't going to say 'sedated', were you?"

The stranger winced. "Um. Yes?" He coughed. "Sorry. My partner got a little carried away. He - does that sometimes."

"Stabs people in the neck?"

The stranger winced again. "No - well, yes. Sometimes. But I meant he gets carried away."

"Oh." Cesc paused to digest this. So he'd been sedated via neck stabbing by a mysterious violence-prone operative who had then transported him to an unknown location, where he was now confined with a man who was familiar with handguns and tended to assume people were gang affiliates.

Cesc was in the middle of thinking he should probably be feeling a lot more nervous when there was a perfunctory knock and the door swung open.

The man who entered the room radiated such sheer magnetic presence that it was a minute before Cesc realized someone else had slouched in behind him, nearly in his shadow. Where the first man moved with all the controlled power and confidence of a big cat, not a thread of his impeccable suit out of place, the shadow projected an aura of simmering belligerence, spiky black hair standing straight up with the force of his glower. A loaded shoulder holster stood out starkly against his plain white t-shirt.

Lion King took the vacant chair. Cesc's stranger and Spiky Hair moved over to take up positions on either side of the door.

Cesc was starting to think this wasn't the police after all.

"So," Lion King said, leaning forward and clasping his hands. "You're Francesc Fbregas."

"Everyone calls me Cesc," said Cesc automatically, and then, "Hey. What?"

"Let me introduce myself," said Lion King. "I'm Lus Figo." He held out a hand for Cesc to shake.

Cesc just stared at him. "How did you know my name?"

In the background, Cesc's stranger was looking guilty again. Lion King - Figo - folded his hands again and said, "We identified you just as we would anyone else."

"Which is what?" Cesc sputtered. "That's an - an invasion of privacy!"

"I could tell you we found an ID card on you if that would make you feel better," Figo suggested.

"No!" said Cesc. "No, it wouldn't! Who are you guys? Who do you work for?"

Cesc's stranger and Spiky Hair exchanged a glance. Figo merely said, "You haven't heard of our organization. Trust me."

"My sister's in journalism," said Cesc, half-challengingly, omitting the fact that Carlota was in fact a journalism student. "Try me."

Figo sighed and raised his eyes to the ceiling, then uttered three letters. Cesc frowned. He thought, and thought some more. Try as he might, he couldn't get them to mean anything.

Figo gave a faint smile at Cesc's consternation. "We're headquartered in Brussels," he said. "I'm afraid that's all I can tell you right now."

Cesc said, in a voice pitched considerably higher than usual, "Are you _spies?_ "

Spiky Hair snorted. Figo said, "I would say more along the lines of law enforcement."

"So you're - you're, like, secret agents. You too?" he said, looking at the one who'd rescued him. "You're a secret agent?"

Cesc's stranger started. He looked at Spiky Hair, and then at Figo, who gave him a slight nod. "Um - yes?"

Cesc drew in a breath. "Oh man," he said reverently. "That is _so cool_."

All three looked taken aback. Then Figo's lips twitched, and Cesc's stranger - Cesc's secret agent! - coughed into his hand. Spiky Hair just rolled his eyes.

"So that's why you couldn't take me to a hospital," Cesc said with dawning realization - not that he minded having his shoulder set by _Jason Bourne_. "Someone's after you."

There was a short silence.

"Actually," said Figo, "someone's after you."

Who was he talki

"What?" said Cesc blankly. "Me?"

"We're hoping your answers can help us figure out why."

" _Me?_ "

"Cesc," said Figo, "what exactly do you remember from the explosion?"

Cesc realized his mouth was hanging open. He willed himself to close it and rubbed a hand over his eyes. "Um... before or after I jumped out the window?"

Cesc's agent had another bout of coughing. One of Figo's eyebrows went up, but all he said was, "Before you jumped out the window. Start at the beginning."

"Um, well - " Cesc scratched his neck slowly. "I got back from class and everyone had been evacuated from our building. But Honey - my landlady's dog - got left inside, and my landlady was really upset. The guy at the front door wouldn't let her back inside and she was about to cry and everything, so - "

Figo interrupted him. "At the front door? Someone from the gas company?" Cesc nodded. "Did you talk to him? Or did he see you?"

Cesc thought. "Uh - just for a second, I think? My landlady was talking to him when I found her. Why?"

"Silva, notes," Figo said without taking his eyes from Cesc, and at the door Cesc's agent - Silva? Was that his name? - checked three pockets before producing a slim electronic device, which he promptly flipped open. "Keep going," Figo said to Cesc. "I'll explain when you're done."

"Uh - right, so I said I'd go in from the back and get Honey. So I - " Cesc paused, " - got in through my window..."

He trailed off, and Figo said, deadpan, "You've had practice."

Cesc fidgeted. "A little, yeah."

Figo somehow managed to give the impression of amusement without actually moving any facial muscles. All he said was, "Then once you got inside...?"

"I got Honey and just as we were about to go, one of the gas company guys came in."

Figo only leaned forward slightly, but his gaze somehow doubled in intensity. "And he saw you there?" At Cesc's nod, "Can you describe him?"

"Sure," Cesc started to say, "he - "

He stopped. That was funny. Cesc had seen the man perfectly clearly, and he was - he was -

Figo sighed. "Don't feel too bad," he said, as Cesc's mouth opened and closed like a fish. "Most witnesses can't describe a suspect with more than thirty percent accuracy, anyways."

"But he was _two feet away_ , I can remember everything else, I just - " Cesc stopped, one arm flung out. "What do you mean, a suspect? What did he do?"

Figo ignored the question. "Did this man approach you?"

"No," Cesc said. "It was creepy. He didn't say anything, he didn't even move, just watched me leave again."

"He was expecting someone else," Spiky Hair said. His voice was, surprisingly, not deep. Cesc started, but couldn't help asking, "Who?"

"Us," Spiky Hair said, in a voice clearly meant to intimidate, and Cesc realized that - of course - he was the mysterious neck-stabbing partner.

Figo resumed his questioning before Cesc could bring that up. "You left the same way you came in?"

"Yeah. Oh, wait - someone else came in, but I didn't see him, I just heard them talking in the other room. Then I got out the window, and..." Cesc frowned. "There was a shout, or something. And then, boom. Next thing I knew I was on the ground and he - " a nod in the direction of the door, " - was there."

"Silva? Does that sound right to you?"

"Hm?" Cesc's agent, furiously tapping at his little device, jerked his head up. His bangs flopped in his eyes. "Oh. Yes. He was under the dumpster lid - it protected him from the worst of the debris."

So that explained it. Cesc spared a grateful thought for his luck before pressing on. "But I still don't understand," he said. "You said someone was 'after me'. What do you mean, after? What for? What did I do?"

All three agents exchanged a look. Figo sighed and rubbed the side of his temple. "To be honest? We still don't know." Cesc opened his mouth, and before he could say anything, Figo said bluntly, "There is no such company as Abramovich Gas. The men you saw are connected to one of the most dangerous criminal syndicates in Europe, and right now that syndicate wants you."

As Cesc, open-mouthed, attempted to process that, Figo stood up. "Well?" he said to Silva and Spiky Hair.

Silva shook his head. "You're right," he said. "We can't let them know he's alive. It's just too dangerous, at least until we know what they're after."

"Villa?"

"Yeah, great," said Spiky Hair - Villa - "but unless you're planning on locking him in a safehouse with a 24-hour bodyguard, someone just _might_ notice a kid suddenly hanging around our people who happens to match the newest item on Moggi's wish list."

Silva's eyes flicked over to Figo apprehensively, but Figo said, "That's a very good point." He waited a beat before adding, "Thank you for volunteering."

Silva's eyes went big. Villa's entire face convulsed. " _What?_ "

"What?" Cesc echoed, but no one paid attention to him.

"Congratulations," said Figo. "Meet your new trainee, as far as everyone outside this room is concerned. Treat him like a normal recruit - take him to the labs, the firing range, whatever you want. But do not, under any circumstances, let him out of your sight outside of a secure facility. Understand?"

Villa was still dumbstruck, so Silva was the one who got it together to say, "Yes, sir."

"Good," said Figo. He checked his watch. "Perfect timing. I'll take care of the necessary paperwork immediately. I expect you to stay in direct contact with me for the duration. Villa, I'll give Ral your regards."

Villa, still gaping, revived enough to snarl. "Wait," said Silva. "What are we cleared to tell him?"

One brow arched. "Tell him whatever you want," Figo said. "He's dead."

The thud of the door closing behind him was ominously final.

Silva let out a deep breath and slumped against the wall. Next to him, Villa finally produced a noise. "A _trainee?_ " he exploded, at the same time Cesc yelped " _Dead?_ "

Silva looked from Villa to Cesc and back again, and both hands came up to scrub over his face.

Cesc had had enough. "Look," he burst out. "I answered your questions, I didn't butt into your weird cryptic secret agent talk, but now you're talking about some kind of plan for me? And apparently I'm dead? I still don't even know why my flat blew up, not to mention why the Mafia has my number!" He crossed his arms over his chest, and leveled his best glare at the two agents.

Villa opened his mouth, and Silva said, without taking his hands away from his face, "David, just - don't say anything. Please."

Villa's expression teetered between injury and outrage. It eventually settled on an even blacker scowl and he slouched against the wall, muttering under his breath. Silva muttered something, too, before taking a deep breath, removing his hands, and dredging up a smile in Cesc's direction.

"Sorry," he said. "We haven't even introduced ourselves yet. I'm David Silva, and that's David Villa."

Cesc blinked. "Really? Is that part of your cover?"

David Villa shot him a look of purest contempt. David Silva merely gave him another smile, marginally more cheerful, and said, "Nope, just coincidence."

"Huh," said Cesc.

"Anyway," Silva continued, "we'll tell you what we can. But Figo was telling the truth - we don't know much about what they want with you." The smile faded away, replaced by a frown. "It doesn't make any sense."

"So what were they doing in my building?"

"There was supposed to be a meeting," Silva said. "A minor gang - cigarette smuggling, lottery skimming, that kind of thing. Our offices don't usually deal with that, but someone tipped us off that they were getting into in narcotics. A planted tip, actually." He shrugged and said dismissively, "As soon as we figured out Moggi's syndicate was involved we knew it was just a lure. They knew we knew, we knew they knew we knew, you know."

"...I don't think I do," Cesc said after a minute of trying to wrap his brain around that one.

Silva paused, disconcerted. "Oh. Um. It's like - a message? That we can't ignore."

Cesc gave him a blank look.

"Okay, well, anyway," said Silva, soldiering on. "David and I were wrapping up another trail in London, so the local office called us in to cover. They figured it was meant to draw personnel away from another area, but nothing unusual seems to have happened..." He frowned again, staring at some point in the distance.

"So..." Cesc prompted after a minute.

Silva gave a little start and flushed. "Um, right. Sorry. Anyway, we were in position next door all morning, there was no sign of anything - and then suddenly 'Abramovich Gas' drove up and ordered the building evacuated. We didn't want to make a move too early, we had no idea what was going on - and then before we knew what was happening..." He shrugged.

"In other words, we have no fucking clue what happened," Villa cut in. Apparently no longer able to stand prolonged stillness, he burst into a restless stride, across the room and back again.

Cesc said, "So the guy I saw inside, and the one out front - they were from the gang? And they want me because... I saw them?"

Silva put a hair in his hair and tugged absently. "That's the obvious answer, but it makes no sense. We identified just about everyone on the scene and we've got half of them in custody now, it's not a secret. They're not even directly part of the Moggi syndicate - they're little fish, the syndicate likes to outsource for minor jobs like that. So what were they doing with heavy explosives, and why - " He stopped short.

"What?" Cesc persisted.

"Why does the syndicate wants you on a platter," Villa said from across the room.

Cesc blanched.

Silva shot Villa a look and sighed. "Or someone who matches your description, anyway. They haven't got much on you yet, but it's only been a few hours." He checked his watch. "Seven. We've closed down the site and floated unidentified casualty reports but that will only last so long. We have to do something with a firm ID before they start to think you're still out there."

It still wasn't sinking in, that some faceless criminal organization he'd never heard of seriously wanted him - dead? Unable to talk? "But you said no one else was hurt," Cesc said. "There's no body."

Silva said delicately, "There's _a_ body."

"Just not yours," Villa said, in a voice that somehow implied, _yet_.

"We're pretty good at that kind of thing," Silva added.

Cesc decided he probably didn't actually want to know. "So - so you're going to tell everyone that the, uh, body is mine?"

"Already have," said Villa. Silva elaborated: "Figo - did we mention, he's the bureau chief here - gave the orders as soon as he left. First a police report, then press leaks."

Cesc sat bolt upright, ignoring the protest from his ribs. "The press? Oh my god, my family's going to think - wait, are you in touch with them already? Can I send them a message?" When Silva and Villa looked at each other, he pressed, "I mean, you're not going to tell _them_ that..."

Neither agent said anything.

"No," Cesc said immediately. "No way. You can't tell them that, they'll - _no_."

"Yeah, we can," said Villa, at the same time Silva said, "It's temporary."

"How temporary?" Cesc demanded. He was gripping the blanket, he realized, so hard his knuckles were white. "They'll think, they'll - don't you _understand?_ "

"You want to keep that journalist sister of yours safe?" Villa asked harshly. "Then shut up."

" _You_ shut up," Cesc said hotly and surged forward.

There was a hand holding him down by his good shoulder before he even saw Silva move. He struggled, fruitlessly, until he pulled his other shoulder again and the lance of pain made him jerk backwards with a hiss.

Silva said, like it hurt, "He's right, Cesc. It's protecting them as much as you."

Cesc searched his face. Silva's dark, tired eyes met his, and Cesc knew without being told that it would be pointless to plead, or to run. He stared helplessly at Silva for a long moment. Then he slumped back against the pillows and swore as viciously as his choked throat would allow, until his voice gave out.

"Okay," he said finally, when he ran out of words, and when he was sure he wasn't going to cry. He rolled on his back and stared at the ceiling, jaw clenched. "Okay. Fine. Whatever. I get it. Can I sleep now or do I have to get permission for that, too?"

After a minute, Silva said, "Cesc - " and Villa said, in a voice so low Cesc barely heard him, "Come on."

Cesc refused to look away from the ceiling as footsteps moved across the floor and the door opened and closed.

He could try to steal Silva's pocket mobile device. He could sneak out the window just long enough to find a phone booth. He could drop a freaking letter outside, if he had to -

The wave of sleep that had been looming over him threatened to crash down and swallow him whole. Cesc let it come.

Out in the little kitchen, David sank into a chair and rolled his neck in a slow circle while Villa paced around the kitchen restlessly.

After a moment, David flipped open his laptop and keyed in his password for the secure network. As expected, Figo's effect was immediate. There were the London police reports identifying the body recovered at Cudworth Road as one Francesc Fbregas, aged 22, Spanish exchange student. Depending on how quickly they released the information to the press, clippings would probably begin to roll in within the next hour.

Next David called up the listing of internal personnel directives. He wasn't surprised to find an order, apparently dated two weeks ago, for the assignment of recruit ID #54104 to agents David Villa and David Silva, Madrid bureau.

Villa wandered over and leaned one hip against the table. "Think he'll actually sleep at all or should we take shifts outside his door?"

"Hm?" said David absently. He glanced up from the screen. "Oh, I drugged his water. So, yeah, probably pretty soundly."

Villa's eyebrows shot up. Then he grinned. "You're something else," he said, and flicked a finger against David's temple. David tamped down on the automatic little flush of pleasure and smiled up at him. Then he ducked his head before he did something stupid and swiveled the laptop around.

"Look," he said. "I guess we've officially got a trainee now."

Villa's grin disappeared. He crossed his arms over his chest and scowled at the screen. "Of all the fucking - We don't even have time for a real recruit. What the fuck are we going to do with some kid who's never fired a gun in his life?"

"Teach him how to?" David offered. Villa gave him a disbelieving look.

"Look, let's think about it for a minute," David went on, trying for persuasive. "This is supposed to be cover, right? It won't be very effective if we hole up in a safehouse somewhere. Figo's not going to stop sending us out, so we might as well make the best of it. The better we handle the cover, the more normal we can act."

After a moment Villa nodded, grudgingly. "What do you want to do tomorrow?"

David thought for a minute. "Take him down to headquarters, I guess, and get him a badge and a gun. If he'll go." He sighed. "I don't think we did a very good job telling him."

Villa's face shuttered. "He'll thank us when it's over."

They were suddenly treading on thin ice.

"They've put a detail on the family," David said carefully. "Just in case. Xavi's in charge."

Villa said, without expression, "Good."

David ran a hand through his hair and cast around for something - anything - to say. Before he could think of something, Villa suddenly put a hand on the table and turned toward David, just a little. His eyes were hooded.

A little thrill ran up David's neck, and his breathing went unsteady.

Villa leaned in, halting, and then abruptly stopped. David looked up at him; his face was a taut and strained. But his eyes were on David.

So David reached up and curled a hand around the back of Villa's neck, drawing him down. As Villa's rough, searching mouth came down on his own, for the first time in weeks David let himself slacken, let himself ease. Let himself think about nothing else but what he wanted - nothing else but this.

  


* *

  
For a moment, when Cesc woke up, he couldn't remember why his cheeks were damp.

Then he could, which was worse.

It didn't take him long to make a decision. There was only one way he was going to be able to survive the next – however long – without going insane, and that was to put them completely out of his mind, as much as he possibly could. (Your _family_ , a ruthless voice whispered.)

For a fleeting moment, he once again thought about running. He was pretty sure they'd catch him, but if he could just get a message to his mother or Carlota... In the light of day, the whole thing seemed even more unbelievable.

But nothing about Figo or his two subordinates had implied anything other than utter seriousness. Cesc rolled over, restless, and his ribs protested.

Whoever had blown up his flat hadn't been kidding around, either.

Cesc sat up and carefully swung himself out of bed. The only way to find out would be to get up and see what happened.

He tried the doorknob, and then when he encountered no resistance, slowly opened the door.

He didn't know exactly what he'd expected, but it wasn't what appeared to be the interior of a perfectly normal apartment - if one a little on the small side. Cesc took one cautious step, then another. No alarms went off. With growing confidence, he padded down the hall.

It opened into a small kitchen flooded with sunlight, where David Villa was sitting at a battered wooden table.

One hand held a mug of coffee; the other was tapping at the keys of a sleek, razor-thin laptop, in which he seemed absorbed. He appeared to be wearing the exact same outfit as the evening before, down to the shoulder holster. Cesc wondered if he slept in it.

"Um," said Cesc. "Good morning?"

Villa's eyes flicked up; he didn't otherwise move. "You're awake," he said, and returned his attention to the screen.

Cesc shifted from foot to foot. "Yeah." He looked around. On the tiny counter, a coffee maker bubbled away; next to it was a chipped mug.

"Can I – " He gestured at the coffee.

"No," said Villa, without looking up from his laptop.

"Oh," said Cesc.

Silence.

There wasn't _that_ much to look at. Cesc prodded his memory. "Where's, uh, Silva?"

Villa's glance flicked up again. "He'll be around," he said, in a tone that did not invite further inquiry. He added, indifferently, "Make yourself breakfast if you want. Or whatever."

"Oh. Okay." Cesc thought for a minute. "Have you got any ramen?"

That got a reaction. Villa recoiled. "For _breakfast?_ "

"It's nutritious," Cesc said defensively.

"The hell it is," said Villa, and, shaking his head, closed the laptop. "Look, here – " He stood up and at first Cesc thought maybe he was going to – Cesc didn't know. Beat the ramen liking out of him. Instead Villa went over to the fridge and, after a moment of poking around inside, pulled out a carton of eggs, a couple of plastic containers and two red peppers. The cupboard yielded a heavy iron skillet, which made Cesc leery for a brief second before it was set innocently on the stovetop.

Villa spared a moment from his preparations long enough to give Cesc a once over and say, "You go - sit down. Read. Or something."

Cesc was tempted for all of about five seconds to ask if he could use Villa's laptop, before sense got the better of him. It was probably full of secrets he could be killed for reading, anyway. Instead, he sat down in the other chair and, for lack of anything better to do, watched Villa chop the peppers and a small onion with alarming speed.

He was clearly at home with sharp objects. Cesc eyed the knife. Was it his imagination or was it longer than normal for cooking?

Villa scraped the vegetables into the skillet and, as if sensing Cesc's eyes on him, turned and raised his eyebrows. "What are you looking at?"

"You," Cesc said truthfully.

Villa gave him a long stare. Cesc stared back, until Villa had to turn back to the skillet with a mutter.

The vegetables were simmering away when Villa set down the spatula and detached the coffee pot from its stand. The smell wafted even more temptingly toward Cesc as Villa filled the empty mug. He then left it sitting untouched on the counter and returned to breaking eggs into a bowl.

"Is that for me?" Cesc said hopefully.

"No," said Villa. Cesc sat back, frowning.

A door opened and closed, down the hall, and a minute later Silva shuffled into the kitchen. His eyes were barely open to slits. Several feathery tufts of hair at the back of his head stuck straight up in the air. "G'morning," he said, or tried to say, as it was swallowed in a yawn.

"Yeah," Villa said, and handed him the cup of coffee.

Silva mumbled something indistinct that might have been a thank you and gave Villa a sleepy smile as he sank into the mug. Villa rolled his eyes, cuffed the back of Silva's head, and pushed him gently toward the table, before turning back to his eggs.

Cesc looked from Villa, at the stove, subjecting the skillet to an intense glare, to Silva, in the chair Villa had vacated, curled around his coffee.

There was no way Jason Bourne made omelettes.

Across the table, the caffeine was taking effect. Silva blinked several times in Cesc's direction, then sat up as if seeing him for the first time. "Oh, Cesc," he said, with another one of those smiles. "Good morning."

Cesc attempted to return it. "Morning."

Silva's eyes went to the empty place in front of Cesc. His expression became slightly attentive and he started to say something; a yawn got in the way before he managed, "Sorry, do you want some coffee?"

"Actually, yeah," Cesc said with a pointed glance at Villa's turned back, which somehow emanated a distinct lack of concern.

"David," said Silva, and was interrupted by another yawn. " – sorry. Could you get Cesc a cup as long as you're over there?"

There was a minute of silence, then Villa made an unintelligible sound. That appeared to mean "Yes" in Villa-speak, because Silva, smile intact, said "Thanks." Villa set another mug on the table with a look that dared Cesc to say something.

"Thanks," he echoed, and smiled at Villa innocently. Villa looked less than amused.

Silva now looked more or less revived. "Did you sleep okay?" he asked Cesc.

"Yeah. What?" – at Villa's inexplicable smirk.

"Nothing," Villa said. "Here." He'd slid the omelet from the pan and cut it into slices; now he put a plate in front of Cesc and another in front of Silva.

Cesc took a bite. He blinked. "Whoa."

"He's good, isn't he?" Silva said, with a little grin.

Villa, leaning against the counter with his own plate, just grunted.

It _was_ good. It was really good. All of a sudden Cesc realized that he hadn't eaten anything in twenty-four hours. He took another bite, and another, and suddenly it was all he could do to keep himself from shoveling the omelet in his mouth as fast as he could.

The rest of the world faded out for a while. His plate was almost empty before he really noticed that no one was speaking. Cesc glanced up from his knife and fork to see Villa and Silva holding a silent conversation that, to judge by the way Villa's head jerked toward Cesc, was probably about him. Silva looked over. Their eyes met. Cesc cleared his throat.

A very faint hint of color brushed Silva's cheeks. "Um," he said. "Are you feeling better this morning?"

He didn't specify whether he meant physically or emotionally; Cesc grabbed at the opportunity to overlook the previous night's meltdown. His chest still hurt, but he gave his shoulder a cautious, experimental roll.

"Yeah," he said, surprised. "A lot."

"Good," said Silva, sounding genuinely pleased. "Then if you're feeling up to it – " He glanced at Villa, who nodded grudgingly, " – we'll take you down to bureau headquarters and get your ID. And a real medic can take a look at you, just in case."

Cesc halted mid-chew. "Wa – " His mouth was stuffed with omelet. He hastily tried to swallow the entire mouthful at once, choked, took a gulp of coffee, and cleared his throat. "Wait. Wait. Do you mean what that guy, Figo, said – I'm seriously going to be disguised as, like, a secret agent in training?"

"We're not _that_ secret," said Silva, which wasn't a no.

Completely independent of will, Cesc's mouth was stretching upward in a gleeful grin. "Oh man," said Cesc. "Oh _man_."

Silva was having a hard time hiding a grin. Villa was rolling his eyes so hard they were on the verge of falling out of his head. "Okay," Silva said. "We'll check in with Figo while we're there. And you should meet Raúl as soon as possible, too."

Villa expelled a noisy breath. Cesc glanced at Silva, meaning to ask who they were talking about.

Silva looked resigned, and – something else, something Cesc couldn't identify. It surprised him enough that he stopped short of speech.

In the lull, Villa drew a long breath and opened his mouth. But when he spoke, it had nothing to do with the mysterious Raúl.

"Call that reporter friend of yours," he said.

Silva clearly hadn't been expecting that. "What?"

"If we're really going to do this," Villa said, like the words were being dragged from him, "which I guess we are, then we need eyes. Whatever we can get. Call the guy you know at the paper, what's his name, Mata. Let him know we're back in Madrid."

"Madrid?" said Cesc.

 

" _Madrid_ ," Cesc muttered.

"Sorry," Silva said for the dozenth time. "Really. Sorry. I was sure someone had mentioned it."

They were waiting in what was, to all appearances, a glassed-in lobby several floors high up a plain office building. It could have been home to any mid-sized corporation or government agency. Only the fact that Villa and Silva had provided, at various points, pass codes, handprint scans, and vocal recognition keys in order to navigate the building indicated that it was something rather out of the ordinary. That, and the fact that Silva, seeing Cesc look out the floor-to-ceiling glass, had said, "Don't worry, it's bulletproof."

That had gone a certain way to alleviate the undeniable sense of disappointment Cesc felt at the fact that the headquarters of a secret agency was so – _normal_.

Villa had disappeared once they were inside, leaving Silva to escort Cesc to what he called the clinic, where the medic on duty had retaped Cesc's ribs and pronounced him more or less fit and trauma-free. Now they were waiting for Villa to rejoin them – which left Cesc plenty of time to brood over the newest development in his enforced disappearance.

"How'd we get back to Spain, anyway?" he asked. "Some kind of top secret connection, right?"

Silva didn't answer for a minute. "Yes," he said finally. Cesc waited. When Silva didn't say anything else, he sighed again.

"So what's next?"

"Um... let's see." Silva brushed his bangs out of his eyes. "Once you've got your ID we'll get you in the security system, then check in with Figo's office and introduce you to a couple people you should probably know. Then you can check out a gun."

"A _gun?_ "

"They come in handy," said a voice right behind Cesc. Cesc nearly jumped out of his skin.

Villa, looking far too smug, handed Cesc a slim leather wallet. "Here."

Cesc flipped it open curiously. On one side was a standard head shot of Cesc he was sure he'd never sat for; on the other, his height, weight, hair and eye color, a signature that definitely wasn't his, and the name _Francisco Macià_.

"Macià," he said aloud, trying it out. The unfamiliar name sat awkwardly on his tongue.

"You probably won't need the signature much, but you should probably practice it when you've got some free time, just in case," Silva said. "Don't lose the badge if you can help it. The chip gets you into the building – see, right there." He pointed to an almost imperceptible rise in the corner.

"Come on," Villa said, heading in the direction of the hall. "Back to security, they've got to scan you."

Cesc frowned. "What kind of scan," he started to say suspiciously, when he was interrupted by two identical piercing beeps.

Silva and Villa both stopped short and looked at each other. "You take it," said Villa. Before the words were out of his mouth Silva had his mobile up to his ear.

"Silva here," he said, and then, "Yes, sir." Then, "Has Figo talked to you...? No. I mean, yes. I – would you rather talk to Da – sorry, Agent Villa?" He blanched. "Oh, no, I – okay. Yes. Got it. Thank you."

He flipped the mobile closed and said, "Raúl."

Villa's jaw jutted out. "What's he want."

"They've tracked Žigić to a location in Carabanchel," Silva said, not smiling now. "We've got to go." He began moving again, swiftly, toward the elevator.

Cesc hurried to follow. Villa was already in step. "What? You're kidding. He's giving that to us the kid's first day?"

" _Hey_ ," Cesc said, but neither Villa nor Silva were listening.

They reached the elevator and Silva ran a hand through his hair. "We did do most of the work on Žigić," he said. "He's not exactly a heavyweight. It'll look strange if we're not the ones to bring him in, especially with a trainee who's supposed to be..." He trailed off.

Villa blew out a breath. "Fine. Whatever. We don't have time for this shit."

"Okay. Cesc – " The elevator pinged. Silva stopped, and then said, "Just follow us and I'll explain in the car. Okay?" Villa was already punching a button inside.

Bewildered, Cesc followed.

 

The car skidded around another sharp corner and David heard a thump from the back seat. He twisted around; Cesc had been thrown across the seat and was rubbing his head.

"Sorry," David said automatically, even though apologizing for David Villa's driving was an exercise in repetition.

Cesc didn't seem to mind too much. He looked sort of excited, actually. "This guy tried to smuggle himself into a bank on a _mail cart?_ "

"He's eight fucking feet tall," Villa said with his eyes on the road. "Who'd he think wouldn't notice?"

"Anyway, that wouldn't normally get us involved," David said, "but it turned out he'd been doing a lot of business with forged passports on the side, and when the police showed up he panicked. Assaulted an officer, jumped the border, landed in our lap." At Cesc's face, he felt compelled to add, "Sorry. It's not all bombs and organized crime."

"Two minutes," said Villa. David's mobile beeped, signaling an incoming message.

It was Raúl's office. _Subdue with minimal force._

"Minimal force," he said to Villa, who grunted and swerved the car the wrong way down a one-way street. David knew better than to think that was agreement.

"So what should I do?" Cesc asked from the back seat.

"Um – " David twisted back around. "Stick close to me or Villa and do exactly what we say. Do you know any kind of martial arts, or self-defense...?"

"I took karate in primary school?"

Villa made a noise that David had no trouble translating as _I told you so_. "Okay," he said, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "Um – "

Villa left one hand on the steering wheel and reached inside his jacket with the other. "Give him that," he said to David, and handed over one of his handguns.

David also knew better than to ask if he was sure. He passed it back to Cesc, who took it gingerly.

"Um," said Cesc, "I'll try, but I don't really know how to shoo – "

" _Don't shoot it_ ," he and Villa said simultaneously. Cesc looked from the gun to the front seat, wounded. "But then what – "

"Time," Villa said, swerving around one final sharp corner, and the car shuddered to a stop.

"Just – hang on to it and try to look like you know what you're doing," David said hurriedly, just before Villa opened the door.

The abandoned workshop where Žigić had run to ground should have been knocked down five years ago, according to city council reports; it had been empty for closer to fifteen. The street backing on to it was narrow and grimy, and there wasn't a soul in sight.

Half the neighboring buildings must have been deserted; they all looked it. David scanned the upper windows. Not so much as a curtain moved.

Villa gave David the signal for silence and took the lead to a small run-down door that must have once been the back entrance.

Villa tried the handle. It rattled, but only gave an inch. He put a shoulder against it and heaved, and it burst inward with a scraping screech. David turned to Cesc and put a finger to his lips, then followed Villa inside.

Faint sunlight filtered through the filthy windows. The wide room was empty of furniture; boxes half-full of unidentifiable machinery parts lay toppled and haphazardly stacked and several wooden planks leaned against one wall. Everything was coated with a thick layer of dust – which made the footprints leading out the doorway on the other side of the room stand out with brazen clarity.

Villa moved forward silently like a wolf on the scent. David fell back, and gestured for Cesc to go ahead of him. He did so, gripping Villa's gun awkwardly; his head darted from side to side and David could tell from his quickened breathing that his pulse had already picked up.

The open doorway led into what first looked like a labyrinth – the first of a warren of cramped, low-ceilinged workrooms cluttered with building debris and raw materials, connected by similar open thresholds. In the corner, a heavy wooden staircase disappeared into a hole in the ceiling.

Villa fell back so they were out of the line of sight of any of the doorways. He signaled to David, _Upstairs_.

David nodded. _Split up_.

 _Cover the exits. Take him._

David nodded again. He was peripherally aware of Cesc looking back and forth between the two of them; now as Villa prowled forward, he turned to Cesc and motioned for him to follow David farther into the building. If they could close off the front entrance, either Žigić would be forced to the back or Villa would find him first. David was betting on Villa.

Just as he began to move forward, there was a thump overhead.

For a minute, there was absolute stillness. Then, a muffled crash, and heavy running footsteps.

Villa was off. David put a hand on Cesc's arm; Cesc had started badly at the crash and now whipped around with wide eyes at David's touch. David looked to where Villa's feet had just vanished from the top step, then back at Cesc, and shook his head; Cesc seemed to get the message and David released him.

Now David had to decide whether Žigić would go for the front or the back. The window panes were too narrow for someone of his size but there was no way now to know if there were any other potential exits – or any other stairways. David gestured for Cesc to stay put and moved cautiously forward, squinting into the dark recesses ahead.

He heard, very faintly, what sounded like another thump overhead.

It was in the direction of the front – assuming he could trust the acoustics. David made a split-second decision and gestured for Cesc to come forward. Every nerve attuned to any sound from the upper floor, David led the way into the dark warren.

It was a mess. Away from the outer windows, the room was shrouded in a dim gloom; hulking and damaged furniture wedged together with more abandoned machinery loomed everywhere, shadow-like. The floor was strewn with rubbish. The other doorway, to the left, seemed to lead into a room equally dark and chaotic. David strove to recall the blueprints he'd barely had a chance to glance at on his handheld, but even if he could have remembered them perfectly they were about fifty years out of date.

He stopped for a minute to listen. Overhead, there was nothing but silence.

A fit of stifled coughing broke out behind him. The dust was even thicker here; David realized he'd automatically held a sleeve up to his mouth to filter the air. He looked over his shoulder. Cesc was doing his best to muffle the sound into his elbow and his shoulders shook as he gave David a look both guilty and apologetic.

David waved him off, turned back around and promptly banged his shins against a lopsided stool.

Slowly, they picked their way through three more dark and cluttered workspaces. There was no sound but their own footsteps. Cesc's heavy breathing hung in the silence.

There was no sign of Žigić's presence, recent or otherwise, anywhere.

There were nearly to the front side of the building – a shaft of daylight sifted in through the doorway, indicating windows beyond – when David heard an unmistakable creak from behind them.

He swiveled around and thrust an arm in front of Cesc. "Stay back," he murmured under his breath. Cesc nodded quickly. He was breathing far too rapidly, but David didn't have time to worry about calming him.

David edged forward along the wall, gun at the ready. One heartbeat, two – Instinct prickled, his pulse jumped, and he leaped through the open doorway.

The room was empty.

Cautiously, Cesc crept up beside him.

Then there was the crack of splintering wood, and Žigić crashed through the ceiling.

 

Cesc's heart was racing so fast he could barely catch his breath. Half the rotting ceiling seemed to have fallen in, flooding the workroom with musty daylight. Žigić lay sprawled on his back, clearly dazed. He struggled up on his elbows and his head moved unsteadily from side to side, taking in Silva, Cesc, the doorway they were blocking – and the one behind him they weren't.

Silva was standing in front of Cesc – Cesc had barely realized he'd moved. If he was at all surprised, he was doing a good job of not showing it. He held his gun loosely at his side; Cesc guessed it was supposed to make him look less threatening, but to Cesc's eyes the competence radiating from every tensed line of his body negated the effect.

"Get away," Žigić gasped, scrabbling back toward the doorway behind him. "Or – or – "

He was unshaven and his face a sickly white – with fear or malnutrition, Cesc couldn’t tell. Sweat trickled down his neck. And he was really, _really_ tall.

His hand was creeping toward his pocket. "I wouldn't," Silva said, and Žigić's hand froze.

Slowly, without taking his eyes from Silva, Žigić pushed himself up into a crouch. When Silva didn't react, Žigić got all the way to his feet. Cesc looked quickly at Silva, who still didn't move. Žigić was tensed – was it for fight or flight? Cesc's palms were sweaty, and he could feel his pulse hammering out of control. If Žigić lunged –

Silva remained very still. When he spoke, it was in a low, soothing tone. "Come on, Nikola," he said. "You're not in serious trouble. Just come in with us and we'll do our best to make sure you're treated well."

Žigić licked his lips. His chest was heaving. "Us," he said. "Who's us."

"My partner and I," Silva said.

"That's not your partner," Žigić said. His voice was high and shaking. Cesc could see him trembling from across the room. "Who's that? Where is he? Tell me!"

"Right here," David Villa said, striding through the far doorway, and jammed a taser between Žigić's shoulders. Žigić dropped like a ton of bricks.

Villa had him on his stomach and handcuffed before Cesc could even blink. As David Silva's shoulders relaxed, Villa said, "He's out. Must have hit his head on the way down."

Cesc's pulse was still pounding a mile a minute. He looked down and realized the hands gripping Villa's gun were white-knuckled. Silva holstered his gun and went up to check Žigić's pulse. "Time?"

Villa checked his watch. "Ten minutes, forty-seven seconds. Damn."

Silva looked disappointed. "Maybe next time."

"Ten minutes?" Cesc said. "That was _ten minutes?_ "

"Our record's six minutes thirty," said Silva. He peered at Žigić's slack face. "Think he'll be okay?"

Villa shrugged. "Yeah, probably. Not our problem."

"Minimal force," Silva reminded him, and Villa grinned and said, "That was minimal."

Villa was in a good mood, Cesc realized. The air around him seemed to crackle, and his grin had an edge of something dangerous and heady.

Cesc eyed the body. "What happens now? Do we have to get him out of here ourselves?"

"Not this time," Silva said. "We call in to headquarters and they'll send along someone to take him off to a holding facility. David – "

Villa was already on the phone. " – got him. Send someone over." He hung up.

Silva cleared his throat and said to Cesc, "Usually there's a little more protocol involved."

It was only a few minutes before Cesc heard a distant creak, followed by footsteps. "Back up," Silva said, but Cesc didn't miss how he and Villa were suddenly tensed and alert again.

The footsteps drew closer. There was a resounding sneeze, and a tall head ducked under the lintel. Its owner stopped short at the sight of them and grinned. "If it isn't my favorite pair of deadly secret operatives," he said.

The newcomer was no Žigić, but next to Villa and Silva he seemed huge, tall and shambling, with shaggy brown hair and a wide grin. Silva's face lit up, and even Villa couldn't seem to decide whether he wanted to smile or scowl.

"Morientes," he said, not unwelcomingly.

"Mori, good to see you," Silva said with a beaming smile, and then almost immediately his expression changed to one of regret. "Raúl didn't call _you_ in, did he? Oh no, sorry – there's not really anything left for investigation – just a suspect to haul in – "

"I volunteered," Morientes interrupted. "Happened to be in the area. I like to see professionals at work. Who's this?"

The question caught Cesc offguard. He had an uneasy feeling Morientes could tell, a feeling supported by the dark look Villa shot at him.

Silva appeared not to take notice. "Our new trainee," he said. "Francisco Macià, Detective Inspector Fernando Morientes."

Cesc nearly missed his alias. Villa raised his eyes to heaven.

Morientes was clearly no fool. He looked from Cesc to Silva, who smiled implacably.

"Okay," he said finally, with another grin. "If David says so. Nice to meet you, Macià."

"Nice to meet you," Cesc muttered, and shook the outstretched hand.

"You got back up?" Villa asked.

"They'll be along." He looked at the insensate form sprawled on the floor and grinned. "The mail cart guy, right? I think we can handle it."

Neither agent responded, which made Cesc look at them curiously. Morientes intercepted his glance. "Hey, new kid," he said. "Want to give me a rundown?"

"He's not allowed to talk yet," Villa said, before Cesc could answer.

Silva began, "There's really not anything – "

"I'll just take a look around," Morientes said, still smiling, but with a hint of the same steel that Cesc had begun to realize was always lurking under Silva's guileless exterior.

Villa and Silva exchanged a glance. "Okay," Silva said after a minute, with good-natured resignation. "Raúl didn't actually call you, did he?"

"Nope," Morientes said cheerfully. "I cracked the encryption on one of the office's communication frequencies. Made sure to tell him I was coming, though."

Silva looked torn between a laugh and a grimace. Villa's snort was definitely amused.

"But I bet you thought so from the beginning, didn't you," Morientes went on. Silva looked vaguely contrite.

"Well," he said, and Morientes' eyes creased.

"So there's no chance of getting either of you to open up a little, huh? What happened, why are you after small fry like this guy?"

"Sorry," Silva said again. "You know the policy."

"All too well," Morientes agreed. "Speaking of which, how _is_ your boss? He wasn't in the mood to talk." He began to pace in a circle around Žigić's prone form.

Villa's mouth flattened. "He's not our boss."

"Actually, he kind of is," Silva said, and glanced at Villa with a sigh. "He's the same as always."

"Still working too hard, I bet," said Morientes. Before either could answer, his eyes sharpened and he dropped to a crouch, peering at Žigić's upper back. "Aha," he said. "Taser. Isn't that a little tame for you, Villa?"

"Nice try," said Villa, looking amused again, and Silva, obviously trying not to laugh, added, "You're terrible."

"It's part of my charm," said Morientes, when Silva's mobile beeped.

He glanced at it, then made an apologetic face. "Sorry, Mori," he said. "Our people are here."

"Damn," said Morientes amiably. "All right, the chief won't like it if he hears I keep getting in your way. I guess I'm out of here. Give your boss my best." He turned to Cesc. "Good luck in the madhouse, Macià."

Cesc didn't know what to say other than, "Thanks." Morientes tossed them a wave and disappeared the way he'd come.

Not a minute later, two other men ducked through the same doorway, coughing all the way. They were wearing the same sort of sharp-edged suits as Villa and Silva, but something about them that Cesc couldn't put his finger on said "muscle".

The one in front – friendly face, long nose – whistled at the sight of Žigić. "Nice job," he said. "He's, what, twice your size?"

"Hi, Joan," said Silva, and "The fuck he is," said Villa.

'Joan' grinned. His partner – shaven head, solemn expression – nudged the prone form with one foot. "I thought Raúl said this was a minimal force job."

Villa opened his mouth and Silva interjected, "He hit his head on the way down. Can you take it from here? We were on our way to get our new recruit checked in when we got the call."

"What?" Joan's eyes went from Villa to Cesc and back with an unholy sort of glee. "You're in charge of a trainee? _You?_ "

Villa bristled so obviously Cesc was surprised static electricity didn't crackle from his hair. "Damn straight. Got a problem?"

"Course not," said Joan, who wasn't even trying to hide his wide grin. "Good luck, new kid."

"Thanks," Cesc muttered again. This was obviously going to be a recurring theme.

"Thanks, Joan," said Silva. "Thanks, Senna." He snagged Villa's arm and yanked not very subtly in the direction of the door. Cesc obediently followed.

"So," he said as they emerged from the building and he judged the newcomers were definitely out of earshot. "What was that all about, with the cop? Morientes?"

Silva took a moment to choose his words carefully. "The local police don't always see... eye-to-eye with the bureau. Especially when we, ah, requisition support."

"Yeah," Villa said sardonically, "or make them clean up our mess." They reached the car.

"Our security classification is way beyond theirs so the policy is we're not really supposed to talk about a case if we haven't been cleared first," Silva went on, as they got inside. "Mori likes to do his best to find out what happened anyway. It's – sort of a thing."

Villa snorted. "'Sort of'," he said. The car started with a sputter and rolled down the street.

"So... I shouldn't tell the police anything if we run into them next time?" Cesc asked.

"Yes. I mean, no. Definitely not. Actually – " Silva looked like he was trying to be tactful. "You maybe shouldn't talk at all to anyone we haven't introduced you to. And, um, maybe work on your poker face."

"Oh," said Cesc, deflating a little. "Okay."

"But you did well," Silva added, in an encouraging sort of tone. "You didn't get yourself in danger, and you didn't get in the way. That's harder than it sounds."

"Yeah?" Cesc said, perking up a little despite himself.

Silva nodded. Villa, to Cesc's surprise, didn't offer a contradiction, so maybe it was true. He felt the faintest hint of a warm glow.

They pulled up outside headquarters in somewhat more time than the outgoing trip had taken. This time, Silva peeled off to, he said, go pick up the necessary paperwork, and Villa took Cesc to the seventh floor.

"Security," he said. "They're all pretty weird, but – " he shrugged, "pretty damn good."

The elevator opened onto a single white hall. It was empty.

At one end was a heavy steel door. A security unit was mounted on the wall next to it. Villa punched in a code, then placed his hand against the pad. The unit flashed red, beeped, and an automated voice prompted for his name and ID number.

"David Villa Sánchez, 33207."

There was another beep, and with a wheeze the door slid open. Villa gestured Cesc forward.

He went through the door and his eyes widened.

The room was long and windowless. Banks of television lined one wall, showing every angle of the headquarters' interior – but also, Cesc realized as he stared at them, closed circuit feed of Madrid's metro stations and – was that the Parliament building? On the next wall was a massive LED screen, currently displaying an overhead map of the greater Madrid area marked by several blinking dots. In front of it, a man and a woman were involved in a heated discussion. A line of workstations ran down the middle of the room, each manned by someone absorbed in their screen.

This was more like it.

"Hey," Villa said, raising his voice, "I need a new input here!"

A dark-haired kid who looked younger than Cesc detached himself from one of the workstations and came over to them. He looked at Cesc questioningly.

"New recruit," Villa said. "Macià, number 54104. He needs to get in the system. Badge," he said to Cesc. Cesc scrambled to produce it. The kid scrutinized it and his face broke into a smile.

"Martínez," he said. "Nice to meet you. This way."

Martínez led him over to a corner, where he fired up an intimidating conglomeration of screens and wires and slick black electronics. His fingers flew across the keys faster than anyone Cesc had ever seen, and after a moment, he told Cesc to step up and place his hand against the screen in front of him.

Villa slouched against the wall, tapping at his handheld, as Martínez recorded Cesc's fingerprints, handprints, a retinal scan, and several different vocal recognition keys. Silva rejoined them while Martínez was having Cesc test his responses against a mock security prompt. Martínez ran a check, a double-check, a triple-check, and finally pronounced Cesc free to go.

As he and Silva and Villa returned to the sterile outer hall, a thought occurred to Cesc. "Hey," he said. "Isn't it sort of, you know, dangerous to have this much information lying around? If I'm supposed to be dead?"

"Good point," said Villa, and before Cesc had time to recover from his double take, "but we can't integrate you into the system without it and you have to look ordinary to everyone else around here." He smirked. "Plus, you saw the place. Our IT security's not bad."

"Besides," Silva added, "nothing besides your fingerprints should be on record anywhere else. Unless you've had a reason to get a retinal scan before." Cesc shook his head. Silva turned to Villa. "That's an idea, though – I wonder if we should change his fingerprint records?"

They boarded the elevator again. "Nah," said Villa. "They'll have been examined too recently. The London team had to laser the fingerprints on the bo – ow, fuck!"

Silva removed his elbow from Villa's side and glanced at Cesc.

Cesc was more unsettled than he wanted to let on. He didn't want to pursue it. "Where are we going now?" he asked instead.

"The chief's office," Villa said. "If he's in."

"And deputy chief's," Silva added. "That's Raúl González – he runs most of the day-to-day operations here."

So that was the mysterious Raúl. If he was the deputy chief, what was Villa's problem with him? Cesc wasn't stupid enough to ask, but that didn't mean he didn't really want to.

The elevator let them off at the fifteenth floor, near the top. At first it seemed like just more ordinary offices – until they turned a corner and the corridor came to a sudden end in front of a glass wall, double doors emblazoned with a large seal Cesc had never seen before.

There was no extra security here. Villa pushed one of the doors open.

A clamor of voices filled the air, over what sounded like a dozen mobile phones going off at once. Someone shouldered Cesc aside and dashed out the door. It took him to minute to realize that all the commotion was coming from what couldn't be more than half a dozen people, each attempting to be in at least three places at once.

Villa was glaring at the room at large. "It's always like this here," Silva said to Cesc in a low voice. "You get used to it, sort of." He got the attention of the nearest scurrier and nodded toward a pair of doors in the back wall. "Is Figo – "

One of the doors swung open with no small amount of force and everyone stilled. The man who stood in the doorway wasn't particularly tall or physically imposing, but he dominated the room effortlessly. His dark eyes lit on them.

"Villa," he said. "Silva. Get your protégé in here and shut the door." His gaze swept the rest of the area and he raised his eyebrows; suddenly everyone was working with doubled intensity.

The office was wide and well-lit, with a sweeping view over the city. Cesc forgot about it within seconds. As soon as the door shut, Raúl said bluntly, "Capdevila and Senna were ambushed on their way to the holding facility."

It took Cesc a second to connect the names with the pair who'd taken custody of Žigić in Carabanchel. His mouth dropped oven. Next to him, Villa had gone rigid, and when Cesc glanced over, Silva's eyes were wide.

But Raúl wasn't finished. "Senna was shot in the shoulder. Žigić ran. Capdevila thinks they were trying to spring him and he thinks they were organized."

The ringing silence was broken by Villa saying, "Well, fuck."


	2. Chapter 2

"Žigić," Villa said, still disbelieving. " _Žigić_."

David pressed the heels of his palms against his closed eyes. "We didn't even consider it," he said. "We didn't even – shit."

"Neither did Senna or Capdevila," said Raúl, and after a beat, "Or me. There's plenty of blame for us all to share."

According to Raúl it had been quick and ruthless: two unmarked vehicles bracketing the transport van at a deserted intersection, too fast for Capdevila and Senna react. They had been heavily outnumbered; the fact that both were still alive was strong evidence for Žigić having been the sole target from the beginning. The perpetrators had spoken in heavily-accented English, which could have been either a cover or a necessary common language, and Capdevila hadn't recognized any of them. Senna was still unconscious.

"I don't get it," Villa said, like it was a personal insult. "He's so fucking incompetent. How did he manage to get in with these guys? How the hell did he manage to get in with _anyone?_ "

Raúl locked his hands together and rested them on the desk. "He doesn't seem to have changed significantly?"

"He fell through the fucking ceiling," said Villa.

Raúl took a long breath and pinched the bridge of his nose. "No. All right."

"Do we know that for sure?" David asked suddenly. "I mean, that they're working together and not that they – " he winced, " – want him themselves? Maybe for something he's done?

"That's a possibility," Raúl said. "Capdevila thinks Žigić went toward them, though obviously with him that might not mean anything. Normally I'd put you on the trail – "

"No way," Villa said immediately. "Not until we know who it was, not with Fàbregas. Even if it's not directly Moggi's people, if – "

"Yes," said Raúl, raising his voice, "which is why it's gone to Albiol and Arbeloa. I've told them to check in with you if they need anything."

Villa looked affronted. A voice spoke up. "What happens if you can't find out?"

David had almost forgotten Cesc was in the room. Other than a brief "This is him," from Villa earlier, and an acknowledging nod from Raúl, he'd faded to the background amidst the rapid debriefing on both sides. Now David saw he'd positioned himself a little off to the side, where he could watch Villa and Silva and Raúl all three.

"We'll find out," Raúl said. His tone did not acknowledge the possibility of an alternative.

"Where's Figo?" asked Villa.

Raúl gave him a piercing look. Villa raised his hands and said, "What, so I can't ask questions any more?"

Raúl looked, as always, as though the reason he wasn't making any of the several choice responses at his disposal was because he was above that kind of thing. "Figo left for Brussels this morning. He's scheduled to return tomorrow evening. I've spoken to him and we agreed there's no reason for him to come back earlier."

Villa crossed his arms. "Yesterday he told us to stay in touch with him. Directly."

"Then I'm sure he gave you the necessary information to contact him personally," said Raúl. He turned back to Cesc as Villa's mouth moved in silent indignation. "I'm sorry we haven't had time to speak yet. I hope everything is going well so far."

Cesc didn't appear to know whether he should take that at face value. He settled for, "Uh, yeah? I think." – with a questioning glance at David.

"He was good," Villa said, abrupt and unprompted, before David could say anything. "Stayed out of trouble, didn't panic."

Raúl's eyebrows went up. "Good," was all he said, and to Cesc, "If David says so, he means it."

Villa shrugged, affecting indifference. His stance, however, was significantly less belligerent.

The startled look on Cesc's face might otherwise have made David smile. "Um," he said, looking from Villa to Raúl and back to Villa. "Thank you?"

David cleared his throat. Villa and Raúl turned in perfect sync. "Do you want a full report now, or – "

"Write it up and have it for me tomorrow," Raúl said. "I have – more than enough to deal with until Figo's back. As a matter of fact, if that's all – " there was no question that it was, " – there are a few things that need my attention right now."

"Like what?" said Villa, probably out of sheer habit.

Raúl let the silence hang long enough that David shifted uncomfortably. Villa just stared back. Raúl's voice, when he spoke, was calm and ominous. "Like the spike in narcotics trafficking through Mallorca. Like the fact that thanks to Morientes we need to re-encrypt all intra-office communication. Like the leak that's looking more and more like it's not accidental. Like – not that this should have had anything to do with us in the first place – Ibrahimović getting in another spat with the Barcelona office over that damned evidence order. Would you like me to go on?"

Villa opened his mouth and David cut in, "No, that's enough." Raúl's eyebrows shot up; David actually heard his own words and blanched. "I mean, no, sorry, we understand, you have plenty of things to deal with, especially with Figo out, and – we'll just be heading out now." Damn it, he hated when that happened, which it always did around Raúl. "We'll check in again later. Let us know if there's anything else we can do."

"Thank you, Silva," said Raúl, with a clear tinge of amusement. David felt his cheeks heat. "Good luck, Fàbregas."

"Thank you," Cesc said. "Um. Sir." He made a face that expressed a certain amount of what David felt himself and slid out the door.

Villa paused on the threshold and looked back over his shoulder. "If you ask me – "

"I didn't," Raúl said. He turned to his laptop screen. "Excuse me, I have a job to do."

Villa spun around, eyes bulging, and David grabbed his arm and forcibly dragged him from the office.

Then he poked his head back in the door. "By the way," he said, "Inspector Morientes says hi."

Slowly, Raúl's head came up. He gave David a long, cool look. David coughed and swiftly withdrew.

Granero, who was near enough to have heard the last line, asked, fascinated, "Did you just bring up Morientes on purpose?"

"He asked me to," David said, innocent. Granero shook his head, in either admiration or disbelief. Villa was smirking. David gave him a little smile.

Cesc, on the other hand, looked like he was on the verge of swaying on his feet. David checked his watch. To his surprise, it was nearly two o'clock.

When he glanced back up and saw Villa twirling the car keys around one finger, he didn't need to wait for Villa to ask; he simply nodded.

 

"Do you really think it was them?"

Cesc was sprawled in the back seat, fast asleep. Villa, behind the wheel after all, gave the question a minute before answering.

"There's no way the syndicate would be desperate enough to use a guy like Žigić. And there's definitely no way they'd put their necks on the line to rescue him once he fucked up. But..."

"We can't take the chance," David finished. "I know."

Villa drummed his fingers against the steering wheel. "We need to get Fàbregas on those files."

David pushed a hand through his hair. "I know, I know. I wanted to give him another day, but with this..." He sighed. "I don't think he's dealing with everything as well as he thinks he is."

"No shit," said Villa. "He's not 'dealing' at all. Repressing doesn't count."

"What if he doesn't recognize anyone even when he does go over them?" David said. "Repression, memory loss – we shouldn't assume he'll remember anything even when he sees the files."

Villa made a disgusted noise and the car swerved. "Never mind, I don't know what the hell we're saying – do we seriously think we're going to get answers if he pins Aquilani or Cudicini or who-the-hell-ever? None of those idiots are worth putting out a line on a civilian unless they're doing a really fucking good job of faking it."

"So say it's someone we missed. Someone bigger, maybe a real part of the syndicate." Now they were retreading ground they'd already covered countless times in the past twenty-four hours – on the flight from London, with Figo while they waited for Cesc to wake, in the darkness of Villa's room late into the night.

"Then why did they plant the source if it's such a big fucking secret?" Villa punctuated the statement with a sharp turn at about ten kilometers over the speed limit. "And who in the field's that important to them, anyway?"

"Maybe it wasn't planted. Or maybe it's not about who."

"Then we know shit. Which is right. Like what the fuck they were even _doing_ – " Villa smacked the steering wheel suddenly. David jumped. "Goddamnit, we're fucking useless over here, we can't do anything but _talk_ and _talk_ until we lose our fucking minds!"

There was a long silence. The engine hummed. They ran a stop sign; David didn't point it out.

Then –

"If it is about who he saw," said Villa.

David rubbed both hands over his face. "Who've they got in custody?" he asked. "Maybe one of them will talk. Now that there's a casualty – sort of – I bet they're looking at a worse deal than they were expecting."

Villa snorted. "Yeah, good luck," he said. "No one's ever talked against Moggi before."

"Except Inzaghi," David said, and winced. Even Villa looked slightly unsettled.

"Maybe that's why," David said after a minute. "Maybe they can't afford to have a real live witness this time?"

"They didn't give a shit about witnesses," Villa said. "They walked right into the place and blew it to pieces in front of half the neighborhood."

"And we're back to what happened in the first place." David let out a long sigh. Someone honked right behind them. Villa gave the rear view window the finger and stepped on the accelerator.

Another thought occurred to David, an angle they'd only briefly discussed before. "What about the uniforms?" he asked. "'Abramovich', they said."

"Billionaire, gas industry, recognizable name," said Villa. "Easy choice."

"So you don't think he's involved?"

"If he was, they'd have to be really fucking stupid to put his name on their backs."

David was searching for a good way to bring up the obvious point when the same thought must have occurred to Villa, because suddenly his lips twitched. "Yeah, okay. If they did get themselves involved with Žigić..."

They shared a grin. Then David said, "Did you see the video intel sent over? Abramovich gave a statement yesterday evening. There's absolutely no association between the horrific crime and Abramovich Industries, he's outraged over the abuse of his company's good name, he's deeply sorry about the tragic loss of life – you know. Everything he should have said."

Villa shot him a sideways glance. "You buy it?"

"I don't have any reason not to," David said slowly. "And like you said – that would be really stupid."

It was quiet for another moment, and then Villa said, "So we'll look him up on the network later."

"Right," said David.

They pulled up alongside their building and the conversation was interrupted for several minutes as Villa, to the accompaniment of a steady stream of swearing, got the car wedged in a tiny parallel gap between a motorbike and a decrepit Alfa Romeo.

Either the noise or the car's sharp lurching was enough to wake Cesc. He sat up, rubbing at his eyes with the heel of one hand, and said muzzily, "Home already?"

David didn't know how to answer that. Cesc's gaze focused. He blinked once, twice. "Oh," he said. His voice was subdued. "Right."

He trailed behind them up the three flights of stairs, and then, as David was unlocking the door, said, "Hey. I didn't even ask. Do you guys both live here or what?"

David suddenly couldn't even bring himself to look in Villa's direction as he answered, which was stupid, because it wasn't like there was anything to be embarrassed about, not really; not except how he wanted there to be.

"Sort of," he managed to say in what he judged a normal voice. He pushed the door open and kept talking over his shoulder as they went inside. "A while back we were on a high risk case – high enough they had us stay in a lockdown facility until it was wrapped up. It turned out we get along pretty well off the job, so – " He shrugged, and hoped he wasn't coloring.

"The whole building's secured by the bureau," Villa added, disabling the silent alarm by the door with a thumbprint. "You wouldn't be allowed to stay here if it wasn't."

Cesc was staring at the alarm like he hadn't even realized it was there earlier, which he probably hadn't. "Oh," he said belatedly. "Um. Good."

He was looking around the tiny entrance hall with a lost expression. David almost hated what he had to say. "Cesc, I'm sorry – I know it's been a long day already, but – we really need you to take a look at some files."

It took Cesc a minute, as if David needed another sign he was crashing hard. "Oh," he said, "for the – gang, or whatever they were."

David nodded. "We'd let it go a while longer, but after this morning – "

"No," Cesc said. "It's okay. It's just – " He hesitated, and then said plaintively, "I'm kind of hungry."

None of them had eaten anything since that morning, and on top of the adrenaline crash – David rubbed at his temple. "Right," he said. "Sorry. Of course you can – "

"We'll find you some of that ramen shit you like so much," Villa interrupted.

"Okay," Cesc agreed, perking up, as David shot Villa a look.

Villa shook his head. "You're pathetic," he informed Cesc. David, knowing exactly where this was leading, was unable to hide a grin. Villa saw it and said to him, "Don't get used to it," flicking the side of David's head as he went by.

Villa made sandwiches of cold grilled pork loin and serrano ham, which Cesc put away with a speed that made his breakfast massacre seem leisurely. David eventually managed to tear his eyes away from the spectacle to eat something himself, then cleared everything away while Villa logged onto the bureau's remote network. They'd pulled the right profiles yesterday; now Villa called them up again and swiveled the laptop so it faced Cesc.

"That's all of them. Hit 'next' to – whatever, you can figure it out." After a minute, he added, obviously against his inclination, "Take your time." Cesc was already leaning forward.

The room was silent but for the occasional click of the mouse. Villa leaned forward, eyes on Cesc, with no indication that he would so much as blink any time soon. David imagined he could hear a clock ticking, somewhere.

After a minute, Cesc looked up.

"You know, I can feel it when you stare at me like that," he said to Villa.

Villa only raised his eyebrows. When Cesc looked back at the screen, though, he got up and began wandering around the kitchen instead. David watched him absently, letting his thoughts drift.

After some time, Cesc looked up. David straightened, and saw Villa, leaning against the counter, do the same.

"There's no more," Cesc said, sounding puzzled. "Was that all of them?"

Across the kitchen, Villa's eyes met David's. Villa's mouth twisted. David let out a slow breath. "Yes," he said. "That was all of them."

"But – " Cesc looked from Villa to David. "I don't recognize anyone. I thought once I saw – "

David ran both hands through his hair and tugged. "Do you think it's just that you don't remember, or – " He checked himself, turning his frustration inward. Of course Cesc wouldn't know, that was the point.

"I don't get it," Cesc sounded, mostly to himself. "I have a good memory. This is stupid." After a minute, he added a quiet, "Sorry."

David grimaced. "No, it's not your fault. It might not even matter, we were just saying so earlier. Or it might be someone we missed."

Cesc looked skeptical.

"If you remember, you remember," Villa put in unexpectedly. "If you don't, you don't. Don't beat yourself up over it." When Cesc twisted around to look at him, he locked his hands behind his head and acted like he hadn't said anything.

David said, "If you want, Cesc, you can take a rest. If this was really your first day training, we would have sent you home by now."

Cesc looked like he was about to protest, but as he opened his mouth, he was overtaken by a massive yawn.

David smiled a little. "Take a nap," he said. "It'll still be here when you wake up."

"Okay," Cesc said, yawning again. He got up and then, on the verge of turning down the hall, hesitated.

"Hey," he said. He shifted from one foot to the other. "Can I ask you a question?"

David glanced at Villa, whose brows were raised. "Sure," he said.

"I was just wondering," Cesc said. "Today, that Raúl guy told you to use – what did he say – 'minimal force'."

David nodded. "He knew we could probably afford to. And Žigić hasn't done anything really out of line. Hadn't," he corrected himself, with a wince.

"Okay," Cesc said. "But sometimes…" He trailed off, then straightened. His eyes, when he looked at David, were direct. "You told me in London you weren't going to kill me. Have you? Killed someone?"

It was like a kick to the chest. David's breath caught in his throat. After a moment, he was able to say in a fairly steady voice, "Yes."

But he couldn't quite meet Cesc's eyes.

Villa glanced from Cesc to David and frowned. "So have I," he said ominously. "A lot of people." Unspoken was, _and you could be next_.

David managed a smile. "Don't exaggerate, David."

Villa's frown deepened. "Look, Fàbregas," he said. "Yeah. I've had to kill another human being, and I'll have to do it again. It's part of the job. It's not cool, it's not exciting, it's fucking horrible. But if there has to be a choice – one guy or a lot of others hurting, or someone who's just in the wrong place at the wrong time, or my partner – someone has to do it and it might as well be people who won't let it fuck them up until they turn into what they're trying to stop."

By the time he finished his impromptu speech Cesc's eyes were wide. David had to tear his eyes away from Villa and fix his gaze down on the table for a moment. He knew what his expression must look like.

"Is that what it's like? Silva?"

He looked up. "Yes," he said. "David's got it exactly." He risked a small smile at Villa, who quirked one side of his mouth. "We try not to, of course. But sometimes – " He shrugged. Then it occurred to him why Cesc might be asking, and he hastened to add, "Of course no one expects you to – "

Cesc's face indicated it hadn't even occurred to him. David flinched. Villa rolled his eyes and said, "Fàbregas, go get some sleep."

"Okay," Cesc said after a minute. "Sorry about the files. I'll try to remember." Before either of them could say anything, he disappeared into the hall, and a minute later they heard the soft snick of a closing door.

David could feel Villa's eyes on him. He kept his own averted. There was a creak, and then footsteps across the floor, until they came to a stop in front of him.

David made himself look up. "I still have to get in touch with Juan," he said, to break the silence. "Maybe tomorrow he can – "

Villa reached out and slid a hand through David's hair, letting it come to rest curved around the crown of David's head. The words dried in David's mouth.

"Stop doing that," Villa said.

David swallowed. "Stop what?"

Villa frowned. "You know what."

David did know. He knew he wasn't going to stop either. He couldn't help it. He looked down at his lap and tried to smile. "Yeah," he said, almost to himself. "Okay." He straightened, and gave Villa a lopsided smile. "Abramovich?"

Villa didn't look convinced. The hand in David's hair slid down to the back of David's neck and squeezed, warm, before dropping away

"Okay," he said. "Abramovich."

David watched him take Cesc's seat in front of his laptop. His chest was tight, so tight it ached. He wished –

After a minute, he was able to push it away, and went to take a seat across from Villa.

 

* * *

 

"It's no big deal," Jérôme's brother had told him, the first time, "just a little bit of money on the side. Your mom will be happy you're making yourself useful, you know?"

That had been three years ago. Jérôme's brother had skipped the city for Milan a few months later, after the bust-up with Ballack got Berlin too hot for him. Which left Jérôme still here, stalling.

He'd gotten caught, once – gotten off lightly, too, with just a fine and a reprimand, no jail time. But it was on his record now, and the prospect, always dim, of an actual job – a real job during daylight hours, five days a week with vacation and sick leave and a scheduled paycheck – receded further and further in the distance. Jérôme didn't know if he'd even like a regular job. He'd never had one.

But there weren't any jobs coming in, and hadn't been for weeks now. If they didn't pull something together soon, he wouldn't even be able to pay his mobile phone bill, currently crumpled behind the toaster where he wouldn't have to think about it every time he saw it – not to mention his share of the rent.

"He's late," Lahm said, recalling Jérôme to the dingy, badly-lit room.

"Maybe he's got a job," Gomez suggested, with more optimism than Jérôme felt. Than Lahm felt, either, to go by his face.

"If it were you, he wouldn't be thinking up nice excuses," Lahm said. Gomez shrugged. Schweinsteiger, next to him, looked tired.

From the front of the apartment came the sound of a door opening and shutting. Everyone shifted, resettling themselves, more attentive. Lahm didn't seem particularly cheered. The brisk, clipped footsteps were unmistakably Ballack's – only, Jérôme realized, there was a second pair, too.

Sure enough, when Ballack came through the door, he was trailed by an unfamiliar man, unsmiling, tall and broad-shouldered with deep-set eyes.

Jérôme scanned the room, as unobrusively as he could. None of the others – not even Schweinsteiger or Lahm – seemed to show any signs of recognition. Across the room, Khedira caught Jérôme's eye and shrugged, minutely.

"Hello," Ballack said, without preamble. "I've brought someone who will be helping us with a new job."

"A job," Gomez said, sitting up. A smile lit Schweinsteiger's face, an echo of his old grin. Even Podolski lost the petulant frown that had become his habitual expression over the last weeks.

"This is Luca Toni," said Ballack. "He's vouched for."

Luca Toni gave them a brief, distant nod.

Ballack always got formal when he explained things. "It will be a bit unusual, but you should be pleased to know it will be long term. A favor for Karl."

Schweinsteiger's smile faded a little; Gomez and Hitzlsperger couldn't or didn't hide their surprise. Lahm's eyebrows bristled downward, and his mouth was tight. Khedira, Marin, and Ozil merely looked confused – or in Ozil's case, characteristically unreadable.

Karl the businessman, never named, never specified, who had retained their services before, financed them, made introductions, all in exchange for a favor here, a favor there –

Ballack was speaking again. "Luca is going to help us liaise with others he's worked for – Karl has arranged it."

He paused, as if waiting for someone to speak. No one did. The silence painfully loaded; everyone knew who would, normally, have done so. Ballack's rock-hard expression barely changed, but it was enough to show that he had been thrown off his rhythm. Unconsciously, Jérôme's eyes went to the corner of the room, which was empty.

It had been six weeks since Torsten Frings had been arrested.

It was no secret that the fractures among them, already present, were accelerating alarmingly in his absence. Without Frings' unconditional back up, Ballack's control was less a matter of skill and more and more one of stubborness and sheer willpower. He couldn't find his footing, and was determined to shove forward anyway. The ones who'd been around for a while – particularly Schweinsteiger, who led the faction – were still willing to go along with him, for now, but the newbies – Khedira, Marin, Neuer, Ozil – were beginning to look askance at each other. Jérôme, both and neither, didn't know where to look.

And then, of course, there was Lahm – Lahm, who was challenging Ballack more and more, who often disagreed outright, who didn't shy from saying so when he did.

He was about to speak now, Jérôme realized, and braced himself.

"Excuse me," Lahm said, in a voice that implied exactly the opposite. "I thought our decision was to stay out of – entanglements. With others. I think we, all of us – "

"Yes," Ballack cut him off, curt. "This is different, as I said. It's a favor."

Lahm flushed – with anger, not embarrassment. Jérôme's shoulders prickled.

"Is there anything else you'd like to say," Ballack said. _There had better not be._

It was a second before Lahm ground out, "No."

Ballack outlined the job. The premise was basic: illegal SIM cards, cards that would route calls through a tiny Ukrainian front company charging sky-high fees. Toni's friends would provide the cards from Italy; their job was to receive them and distribute them to the correct mobile shops.

Jérôme saw Schweinsteiger and Gomez exchange another look. SIM cards – it was hardly a skilled operation. Amateur stuff. But if they were to be paid for it...

It hit him at last, in a way he hadn't understood before, how desperate they were.

"The compensation is very good, for low risk," Ballack finished. He waited for a long beat with his eyes on Lahm. Lahm met his gaze almost defiantly, but didn't say anything. Ballack moved on."No one has anything to complain about, I don't think?"

No one spoke.

"Good. Then you'll hear from T – Bastian before the first shipment comes in." Schweinsteiger nodded. "Dismissed."

They dispersed slowly. Lahm, to Jérôme's surprise, remained seated, shoulders hunched and brows slanted furiously downward. Gomez asked Schweinsteiger something in a low voice; Schweinsteiger shrugged. Ballack and his guest went directly for the door.

Luca Toni still hadn't said more than two words the entire time.

Jérôme watched him leave with an uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach.

"Hey," Khedira said under his breath, coming up next to him. "You've been around a while, haven't you? What do you think's going on?"

"What you mean?" Jérôme asked.

Khedira's eyes were on Ballack and Toni. "I don't think Ballack's telling us everything."

Jérôme shifted uncomfortably. "Who says he has to?"

Khedira gave him a thoughtful look. "Lahm, don't you think?"

Without thinking, Jérôme said, "Maybe he doesn't even know everything."

Khedira halted. Jérôme couldn't quite meet his eyes. Khedira resumed his stride after a minute, looking thoughtful. Jérôme followed him.

The echo of his own words hung in his ears for the rest of the night.

 

* * *

 

David spotted Juan as soon as Juan pushed his way through the café door. He waved a hand, and Juan caught sight of him and squeezed past the clustered little tables, thwacking several patrons with his messenger bag in the process.

"Sorry – oops, sorry – hey, David."

"Hi Juan," David said, trying not to laugh as Juan pulled out a chair, slid his messenger bag off his shoulder, banged it against his own shins, made a noise of irritation, and took a seat.

"Is this business or catching up?" Juan asked, opening his menu with a brisk air. "I need to know before I order."

"Um. Both?" David tried.

"So, business," Juan said, to which David gave a guilty half-shrug. Juan didn't seem to mind, though; he usually didn't. A black-clad waiter appeared at their table, and they waited while David ordered cappuccino and Juan something with an ungodly amount of sugared syrup and whipped cream. Juan always wanted sugar for shop talk.

"How's what's-his-name?" Juan asked when the waiter had gone.

"Good," David said. "He wanted to come along again, by the way."

"Sorry," Juan said, with his own guilty shoulder hunch. "It's just the thing he does with the eyebrows, where they get all bristly and his mouth goes all squinched up – "

David felt a traitorous snicker rising, but he felt obligated to say, "That _is_ my partner you're talking about."

"I know," Juan said, and added a little wistfully, "Some day I'll get that story out of you."

"When you get a new job," David agreed, and Juan made a disappointed noise. "How's the paper?"

Juan shrugged. "Okay. Roberto's talking about taking us over to digital completely by next summer." He gave David a piercing look and just like that the slightly mousy air vanished, replaced with sharp-eyed anticipation. "Why? Have you got something we should've heard about?"

So they were jumping right in today. David could handle that. His own expression smoothed into something mild and harmless. "I might," he said. "It depends. I need a favor."

Juan's expression didn't exactly turn wary – he and David had known each other too long for that – but David detected a certain, and deserved, caution. "What kind of a favor?"

"Nothing big," David said, going for reassuring. "Just a heads up if you hear something." He gave Juan a rueful little smile. "You hear more than anyone I know, and I mean in the office, too." That wasn't quite true, but it was awfully close.

Juan relaxed a little, but remained keen-eyed. "I can probably do that. What am I supposed to be listening for?"

It was difficult to strike a balance between communicating the necessary importance and showing too much of his hand, even to someone as trustworthy as Juan, but David had gotten pretty good at it over the years. "Anything about Moggi's syndicate in action around here," David said. "Anything. Who's around, what they're up to, stupid rumors, speculation, I don't care. Just let me know as soon as you can."

Juan's eyebrows went up. "You guys are going after Moggi again?"

"We're always after Moggi," David said. It was true, even.

"Good luck, I guess." Juan's expression was dubious. "You know you'll need it, right?"

David rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Yeah," he said. "I know.

"So is that it?" asked Juan. "Moggi and his minions?"

David hesitated just a moment too long. Juan leaned forward.

On one hand, he was a journalist. On the other, David had known him since they were teenagers, and he knew how to keep quiet, and if there was anyone in Madrid with an ear to the ground –

"The explosion in London a couple days ago," he said. "A student from Barcelona died."

Juan nodded.

"We hear," David said carefully, "that maybe there was someone on the scene."

The little silver spoon with which Juan was absently stirring his coffee stilled.

David said, "If there's any talk about someone like that around here – if you hear any chatter…" He trailed off, never taking his eyes from Juan.

Juan was silent for a minute. Then he said, "If I asked you where you've been the last few weeks, you probably wouldn't say London, would you?"

"No," said David, with absolute honesty.

Juan nodded slowly. "Okay," he said. "I'll listen. I'll keep my mouth shut, too. I trust you." David felt a momentary pang of guilt – Juan still, despite his best efforts, barely knew anything about who David worked for – but not a very strong one. "But I'll get the story when this all comes out. The whole story. Exclusive."

"Of course," said David. He elected not say, If it all comes out.

Juan took a long gulp of his coffee and leaned back in his chair. "All right," he said. "What's today's story, at least?"

A bit of the tension left David's shoulders. "Yesterday," he said. "The incident just outside Carabanchel."

"The drive-by," Juan said promptly, and David said, "Not exactly."

He could practically see the furry little ears spring up on top of Juan's head. Juan fished for a notepad, and David added, "What have you heard?"

"What have you got to tell me?" Juan countered almost before the words were out of David's mouth. David couldn't help a grin, and after a minute Juan laughed a little self-consciously.

"We were chasing down a minor felon but he slipped the net before we could bring him in," David said, relenting. "Nikola Žigić, age thirty, Serbian nationality, wanted for attempted robbery, forgery, and assault on an officer of the law. No serious threat to the public expected."

"Casualties?" Juan asked as his pen scratched away.

"One agent wounded, not critically. Sorry, I can't give you a name yet."

Juan frowned at his pad. "Who's the guy working with?"

"I can't say anything else," David hedged. "You know I'm just giving you the lead. There'll be a full press release later today, I think."

"So you don't know," Juan said. "Interesting." He scribbled some more.

David sighed. "If you hear anything – "

"Right, sure," Juan said, without taking his eyes from his notes. "And I'm hearing this from – "

"Confidential source in the Ministry of Justice." Their press office would back him up, they liked him.

"Great." Juan scrawled one last flourish and said, clearly composing the story already, "Sorry, I don't want to run off – "

He obviously did, and didn't particularly care. David suppressed a grin. That was Juan on a story.

"No problem," he said. "Send me a copy."

"Uh-huh," Juan said, eyes far away. They made their way outside – Juan's messenger bag casualties doubled – and David said, "Stay in touch."

Juan nodded. He started down the sidewalk, then turned. "Watch out for yourself over there," he said, like he did every time they parted.

David smiled and said, according to pattern, "I always do."

 

 

Villa flicked a switch. Cesc's jaw dropped.

"This is all _underground?_ "

They were standing behind a glass-and-steel wall. Beyond it stretched a cavernous, empty space. Several targets lined the far walls, under the illumination of a row of fluorescent lights.

They were alone. Silva had been gone by the time Cesc woke up – out meeting some journalist friend, Villa said. Cesc wondered. Silva had been awfully quiet the previous evening, focused on his laptop, though he said he was writing up the report. And maybe it was Cesc's imagination, but he had the weird feeling Silva hadn't really wanted to talk to him.

He hadn't meant to sound accusing or anything. It wasn't like he didn't realize it needed to happen in real life, and not just when it was us-or-them. He just – wanted to know.

Villa was talking. " – also the detonation chamber, part of the forensics lab, and a couple other things safer down here."

Cesc couldn't help himself. "Like what?"

"Bet you'd like to know," Villa said. "Where's your piece?"

Cesc gingerly held out the semiautomatic. It wasn't loaded yet; Villa had said he'd need to learn that too.

"Good." From out of nowhere Villa had produced two pairs of green-tinted safety lenses and some kind of heavy-looking earmuffs. He handed one of each to Cesc, then donned his own. When Cesc slid the earmuff thing on, he discovered he could still hear Villa's voice, a little muffled.

"Before we go out I'm supposed to tell you the rules." Villa ticked them off on his fingers. "Keep your safety gear on, don't point the gun at anything you don't want to blow a hole in, don't point it at yourself, don't be stupid. Got it?"

Cesc nodded.

"That's your only warning," said Villa, and unlatched the glass door.

Cesc's footsteps echoed eerily down the range. He couldn't help looking over his shoulder once, then again a moment later. Villa, moving with more assurance, took a position in front of the middle target and Cesc followed him.

"Take out the gun. Hold it like this." Villa demonstrated. "Want me to go slowly?"

Cesc frowned. "Whatever you usually do."

There was an actual blur of motion, and suddenly there was a loaded gun in Villa's hand. Cesc looked from the gun to Villa.

"Want me to go slowly?" Villa repeated, smirking. Cesc narrowed his eyes.

This time Villa went step by step, dissassembling, loading, and reassembling. Then he made Cesc try it with his own. Then he made Cesc try it again, and again, until Cesc could run through the entire process without prompting or excessive fumbling. He still felt mind-numblingly slow, but Villa just said, "Practice later. You can do it anywhere. We're moving on." He looked Cesc over. "Know the right stance?

"Uh – " Cesc did his best to imitate the hazy image he'd absorbed mainly from action movies. He waited for the snort, but none came. Villa only said,

"What's your dominant leg, your right? Move it back a little. Turn to the side – stop. Knees flexible. Now – good."

With a little shock of surprise, Cesc realized that Villa was totally immersed in instructor mode. He wished Silva was there, just to see his reaction – but no, Silva probably knew about this side of Villa anyway, if they were partners.

Villa circled him critically. "Now bring up your arm. Drop your right elbow – no, like this." Villa reached in and adjusted the offending elbow. He took a couple steps back. "Brace yourself from the shoulder for the recoil. All you have to do to aim is line up the sights, focus your strong eye, and shoot. Ready?"

Cesc nodded.

"Go."

Cesc squinted through the sights, focusing on the round black bullseye. He resettled his fingers around the handgrip and took a deep breath –

Even expecting it, the recoil jolted him backward and he lost his balance, stumbling back a step. When he regained his balance and peered in the direction the target, there was no sign of the bullet.

Villa merely said,"Brace from the shoulder. Try again."

Cesc braced from the shoulder. This time, he managed to control the recoil, but the shot went laughably wide. He could feel his face heat.

Villa's brows were drawn. He stared "Show me your stance again. Aim. Okay, now – okay. Close your weak eye. Now tip it a little further – yeah, like that. Try that."

Cesc squeezed the trigger again.

The bullet buried itself two rings from the bullseye.

He was so surprised he nearly dropped the gun. "Did you see that?"

Villa's eyebrows were nearly to his hairline as he looked from Cesc to the target and back. "Do it again," he said.

Cesc settled back into his stance. Grip firm, sights aligned, left eye closed, brace and squeeze –

The next shot was slightly wider, but only slightly.

Cesc was grinning wildly. He looked at Villa. Villa had regained his customary unimpressed look. The corner of his mouth curled up.

"So you have decent hand-eye coordination," he said. "Good. Again."

The next one landed on the opposite side of the bullseye, and the one after that went high, but by the end of the hour Cesc had succeeded in concentrating his shots in the same quarter of the target.

"You're not totally hopeless," Villa said, as Cesc unloaded his gun and wiped it clean. "It won't hurt your cover, at least."

Cesc couldn't wipe the stupid grin off his face. "Awesome."

Villa rolled his eyes. "Practice enough and you might even get to be halfway decent." He removed his earmuffs and safety glasses – and opened the door to the glass thing. "Come on – Silva's going to meet us here whenever he's done with Mata."

The opening gave Cesc the extra nudge he needed. "Hey," he said. "Silva didn't mind, right? I mean, we're okay and everything?"

"What?" said Villa.

Cesc shifted. "That thing. That I was asking about yesterday?"

"What are you – " Villa stopped. "That? No. He's fine with you." He made to move forward.

Cesc fidgeted with his unloaded gun, and then realized what he was doing and hastily stilled. "Should I say something? I mean, I didn't mean anything. I just, you know, wanted to ask."

Villa stopped again and exhaled heavily. "No," he said. "He'd just pretend nothing happened, anyway. Like he always does," he added in a mutter that Cesc wasn't entirely sure he was supposed to hear.

Cesc wasn't convinced. Some nebulous feeling he couldn't identify was prodding him to keep going, but he couldn't find the right words, either, and the silence lengthened until finally Villa sighed and turned to face him fully.

"Look," he said. "It's not you. He's had to deal with some tough shit on the job and it's… a thing. With him."

"Okay," Cesc said, after a minute. "If you're sure..."

"Yeah," Villa said. "I am." He gave Cesc a sharp look. "Are you?"

"I don't care," Cesc said. "I swear. It's just – " He didn't realize until he opened his mouth that he was going to say, "What about, you know. _Your_ families?"

Villa's face made him wish he hadn't.

"They manage," Villa said, in a voice like nothing Cesc had ever heard.

Cesc had never been so grateful as he was at that moment to hear the sound of someone else's footsteps. He and Villa both turned. Silva was framed in the doorway, looking from one of them to the other. Cesc glanced back at Villa. The terrible expression had gone.

"Everything okay?" Silva asked. His eyes lingered on Villa.

"Yeah," Villa said briefly. He didn't offer anything more.

It was another moment before Silva turned to Cesc. "So how did it go?"

He didn't seem to be avoiding Cesc's eyes or anything. Cesc was happy to take that at face value. "Good," he said. "Really good, I think? I can hit the target every time now."

Silva's eyebrows went up. "Really," he said, glancing at Villa.

Villa said, "He's actually not bad."

The way Silva's eyes widened almost comically confirmed Cesc's tentative evaluation of the David Villa scale of praise as relative to normal human speech. "Wow," Silva said, sounding a lot more enthusiastic. "Great. Sorry," he said to Cesc, "but we had to assume you'd be pretty terrible. Just in case."

Cesc tried to decide whether he should feel insulted or not. "It's okay," he said. "I guess. So – Villa said you were meeting a journalist or something?"

Silva nodded. "Sort of. A friend of mine from school. He works at El Che now."

Cesc made a face. "El Che? The – " The word 'friend' sunk in and Cesc hastily rearranged his sentence. " – uh, independent paper?"

Silva heard him anyway. The corners of his mouth curved up. "Yes, that one. You'd be surprised what they dig up sometimes. Juan's got good connections and sometimes he'll use them for us, if we ask nicely." He paused and then said, "And if we get him a good lead."

"You mean if _you_ ask nicely," Villa said.

"You make him nervous," Silva said. Villa's face went ominous, and Silva added, "I can't imagine why."

Cesc snickered. When Villa's head swung in his direction he hastily coughed into a fist. Villa eyed him and pointedly turned back to Silva. "So what'd he say?"

Silva ran a hand through his hair. "He'll keep his ears open. He hasn't heard anything yet." He made a face. "And he picked right up on the fact that we don't know what happened with Žigić."

"Yeah, well." Villa shrugged. "He wants a scoop on that one, he can do some of the legwork for us. Fine with me." He glanced from Silva to the range and smirked. "Want to go a couple rounds?"

Silva gave the target a regretful glance. "Can't," he said. He held up a thick folder. "I still have to take this upstairs – I came down to find you first."

Villa looked slightly disappointed. "Okay. We'll head up with you."

Cesc was starting to feel kind of at home in the elevator lobbies. As they disembarked on the fifteenth floor, Silva's mobile beeped.

"Oh," he said, tapping at it as they wound through the hall, "it's Raúl Albiol. They're here at headquarters and they want to see us. Good, we should make sure they've got everything they need."

Villa said nothing. Silva slid him a sideways glance and smiled mischievously. "You just don't like them because they're not intimidated by you."

Villa made an irritated sound. "Who?" Cesc asked, as Silva opened the embossed glass doors, and just as Silva was about to answer, something drew his attention.

The head office was once again a small whirlwind of furious activity, but at the center were three unusually still figures. One Cesc recognized from the day before, a curly-haired guy about Cesc's age who was typing doggedly away at a laptop with a long-suffering look on his face. The other two – one perched on the edge of curly hair's desk, the other looming over it, both wearing identical grins – he'd never seen before.

"Oh," Silva said, brightening, "they're here already."

Both men turned. "Silva!" the tall one said, delighted, and bounded over to collar Silva in a headlock.

"Raúl – argh, no, that tickles – I can't breathe, Raúl – " Silva's words dissolved into a burst of muffled laughter.

The other man, who had dark hair and cut-glass cheekbones, slid off the desk and stuck his hands in his pockets. He gave Cesc an appraising look and then grinned at Villa. "So it's really true," he said. "I said I had to see it with my own eyes. "

Villa, who had assumed a distinctly irritated expression when the tall one had assaulted Silva, looked even less amused.

"Because Capdevila got hit on the head, you know, so we thought it might have been a hallucination."

"For the love of – "

Cheekbones turned his attention to Cesc. "How's it going, Macià? We looked you up on the network."

"Uh," said Cesc.

"Are they hard to tell apart? Don't get confused by the name thing," Cheekbones said earnestly. "Or the height thing. It's easy to keep track, we call them Jekyll and Hyde. Or Good David and Evil David."

A snort of laughter escaped Cesc before he could help it. Villa spared a killing glare for him before saying to Cheekbones, "You fucking _don't_."

"What kind of money do you want to put on that?" Cheekbones said, grinning, just as Silva said, "Don't what?"

He'd finally struggled free, flushed and laughing. The tall guy had a huge goofy grin on his face. As Silva, still half-breathless, tried fruitlessly to tame his disheveled hair he said to Cesc, "Raúl and I went through training together. Sorry, I haven't introduced – or maybe you've already – "

Cheekbones grinned, another flash of white teeth. "Surprisingly, Villa didn't introduce us."

"'Because you wouldn't shut the hell up," Villa said, giving him the eye.

"Albiol," the tall one said with a wave. "The other Raúl. Nice to meet you."

"Arbeloa," said Cheekbones. "Hey."

It clicked. "You're the ones after Žigić," Cesc said.

They both nodded and Silva, sounding pleased, said, "Right. Don't tell me you have a lead already?"

"He – " Arbeloa jerked a thumb at Albiol, " – thought we should keep you updated. Hey, Granero," he said to the curly-haired typist, who had been steadfastly ignoring them in favor of his computer screen. "Can we have a room for a few minutes?"

"Sure," Granero said with clear relief. "The small conference room's free. Take all the time you want."

Inside, Silva took a chair; Villa stayed standing. After a moment's indecision Cesc followed Silva's example. Albiol did, too, and Arbeloa straddled a chair backwards and crossed his arms on the headrest.

"So what have you got?" Villa asked without preamble.

Arbeloa made a face. "Not much," he said. "They picked the right street – half-deserted, barely any traffic. Quick escape, no collateral damage and almost no witnesses. We've tried the ones we can find, but all we've got are a couple of vague statements at best. None of them can tell us anything concrete about the vehicles or the suspects."

Silva raised his eyebrows. "They really didn't see anything, or they 'forgot'?"

Arbeloa shrugged. "Could be either. Capdevila doesn't remember seeing anyone around, but he says himself he was distracted. He's got a rough description of the vehicles and part of one of the plates, but that's it." He blew out a breath. "He's still feeling pretty down about Senna."

Silva's mouth went down. "Yeah," he said. "I bet." Albiol reached over and ruffled his hair; he ducked away ineffectually.

"What did you get from them?" Villa asked.

Albiol answered this time. "Uh, from the first witness we have a description of several men, between five and ten, speech undistinguishable. Mostly dark-haired."

Villa snorted. "So we're not in Scandinavia. Great, good to know."

"The same from the second, without an estimate at numbers," Arbeloa said. "She adds both vehicles were unmarked white vans, which is what we got from Capdevila."

Silva looked from Albiol to Arbeloa. "Well, that's – "

" – pretty useless. I know." Arbeloa shrugged. "We'll keep trying. Meanwhile, this is what we got from the M-40 traffic cameras by Avenue de Andalucia." He tossed something on the table. Cesc craned his neck and saw it was a packet of grainy photographs.

Silva picked them up; when Villa came up behind him he moved his head absently so Villa could lean over his shoulder. A second later he glanced up at Cesc and said with a little smile, "You're allowed to look too, you know."

Silva spread the photos on the table so Villa and Cesc could both see. They didn't look like much to Cesc: two series of blurred shots, both of white vans of indistinguishable make. After a minute, however, he realized that the license plates were legible on both vehicles.

"You think these are the ones?" Silva asked, looking up.

Albiol nodded and Arbeloa said, "Description, partial plate match, travel time from Carabanchel, everything seems to fit. They were headed out of Madrid." He shrugged. "It's not much, but it's all we've got so far. Forensics went down yesterday to do ballistics, so we should have that before too long, and we're headed back this afternoon to try and pry anything else out of the eyewitnesses."

He paused, and he and Albiol exchanged a glance. Albiol shrugged.

Silva looked between them. "What?"

Arbeloa levered himself off the chair and locked his hands behind his neck. "We're tossing around ideas about how these guys knew where to find Žigić in the first place," he said. "They could have just been watching him all along – " Silva and Villa made identical noises of denial, " – yeah, I know, but they could have. But listen, there was that cop that showed up out of nowhere – "

"What?" Silva's eyes went big. " _Morientes?_ "

" – and then he coincidentally vanished before Capdevila and Senna showed up – "

Silva was shaking his head. "No," Villa said flatly. "He didn't just show up, he called in and told Raúl he was on his way. It wasn't him."

"Oh," said Arbeloa, deflating. "Right. Damn."

Silva's brow was furrowed. Albiol noticed. "David?" he prompted.

"Hm? Oh, no," Silva said, "I was just thinking – it's not important. Let us know if you get anything new from the witnesses? And when you get the ballistics report back."

"Sure," said Arbeloa. Silva slid the photos over to him, and he pocketed them and then stretched; though outwardly nothing changed, somehow Cesc could sense a slight relaxation run throughout the room. "Is the boss putting you on a different case?"

"Probably," Silva said. "We don't actually know. When we went in yesterday he was kind of, um. Busy. Do you know why Figo's in Brussels this time, by the way?"

Albiol and Arbeloa exchanged a glance. "Transfer business?" Albiol suggested.

"Nah," said Arbeloa. "Internet boyfriend." Albiol guffawed.

Villa muttered something under his breath. "What's that?" Arbeloa said.

"I _said_ ," said Villa, "you would know."

Arbeloa and Albiol both appeared to think this was the funniest thing they'd ever heard. Silva looked like he wanted to laugh but wouldn't quite let himself. Villa gave them both the evil eye.

"Okay," Arbeloa said, when he and his partner had gotten themselves under control. "We've got to get back to work. Call us if you need anything."

Silva stood up and Albiol slid an arm around his shoulders in a half-hug. "Make sure Villa treats you right."

"Make sure I _what_ ," Villa said, but Albiol and Arbeloa were already making their escape back through the door to the outer office.

"That's just Raúl," Silva said, ducking his head. "Which reminds me, I still have to turn in our report."

Outside, Albiol and Arbeloa were gone already but signs of their presence remained: Granero, the curly-haired admin, was pounding his keyboard particularly emphatically. "We've got a report for Raúl," Silva said to no one in particular, and immediately a fresh-faced blond popped up in front of them.

"Okay," he said breathlessly. "Raúl's not seeing anyone this morning, I'll make sure he gets it. Thank you!" He vanished, or so it seemed; a moment later Cesc saw him in front of a photocopier across the office.

"Do you think Canales actually gets younger each time we come in?" Silva asked under his breath.

There was no answer. Cesc glanced at Villa.

Villa was frowning. "He's not seeing anyone, huh?"

"You heard him yesterday," Silva said, and, one corner of his mouth going up, added, "You asked, I think."

Villa didn't take the bait. "Yeah, but – " His eyes were on the closed door of Raúl's office. "I don't know. I've got this feeling."

Something passed across Silva's face so quickly that Cesc wouldn't have caught it if he hadn't already been looking.

"Oh," he said, in a tone Cesc couldn't read, and then, "Do you think so? You would be the one to notice."

Villa was still staring at the door, like if he just concentrated hard enough he could see through it. He made a vaguely affirmative noise.

Cesc's gaze swung back to Silva. This time, Silva noticed. He straightened and said, "Well, we've got plenty to work on for now. Figo's back in the office tomorrow. We'll see if Raúl has another assignment for us then, I guess."

Villa finally turned away. "Yeah," he said. "Tomorrow."

As they left the office, though, Cesc caught him looking over his shoulder, face etched in a deep frown.

The door to Raúl's office remained closed.

 

* * *

 

He was sitting in the back of a huge cathredal, and the light through the rose window lit his mother and Carlota blue and gold and crimson. They were crying.

He tried to stand up, to go to them, but he was frozen to the wooden pew. Farther down the row his cousins were huddling, the youngest ones, Sofia and Miquel and Daniel – had they been there all along? They were crying, too; Cesc could hear Sofia's voice all the way from the back.

His eyes were drawn helplessly back to his mother and sister. His mother was stroking Carlota's hair. The look on her face made Cesc feel sick.

He tried again to move. He was glued in place. He couldn't look away, or block out the sound of their weeping.

He heard a sound like a gunshot.

 

Cesc bolted upright, gasping. It took him a minute to realize the harsh, ragged sound echoing in his ears was the sound of his own breathing. The room was dark and silent.

His heartbeat was racing. He put a hand to the back of his neck. It came away damp.

His family didn't even go to church.

He squeezed his eyes shut. He wasn't going to think about it. He wasn't going to think about it. He wasn't going to think about –

Cesc slid out of bed as quietly as he could and eased the door open.

Faint light – moonlight? street lights? – cast the kitchen in a ghostly sheen. Cesc took a seat at the table, braced his elbows atop it, and pressed his head into his hands. His fingers dug into his hair.

It wasn't his _fault_ , he was the one who wanted to tell them –

But it would be if they were – if something happened to them. If something happened to them because of this it was his fault and there was nothing on earth that could halt the swirling rush of sick fear that overcame him at the thought.

He dug his fingers in harder, until it hurt. If he could just tell them something – but he couldn't – but it was his responsibility –

Someone was shaking his shoulder. " – night? Fàbregas. Hey."

He started upright, blinking, dazed, into the blinding sunlight. It took a moment for the world to come into focus. When it did, David Villa was looking down at him.

"What?" Cesc rasped. His throat was hoarse. He looked around the kitchen. "'s it morning already?"

"Were you here all night?" Villa said.

"No, I just – I don't – " Slowly, the dream returned, merciless and inexorable, and Cesc trailed off.

Villa was still waiting for an answer.

"I just," Cesc said, and swallowed. "Had a dream."

Villa looked at him for a moment and then dropped down to the other chair, rubbing a hand over his face and then back over his head.

"About – "

"My family," Cesc said, barely above a whisper.

Villa let out a long breath. "I figured," he said.

As Cesc watched, he pulled out his mobile, tapped a single command, and held it up to his ear. It was only seconds before someone answered.

"It's Villa. Yeah." Villa cast a quick glance at Cesc. "No. We're good. Your end?" He paused for a minute, listening, and then said abruptly, "Look, is it safe to leave it to someone else for the day and make it down here? He needs to talk to you."

Cesc sat up. Did Villa mean him? He hadn't thought he was supposed to talk to anyone.

"Thanks," he said. He flipped the phone closed and met Cesc's eyes.

"Xavi Hernández is on his way down from Barcelona," he said. "He's going to tell you everything you want to know about your family."


	3. Chapter 3

It took at least three hours to get from Barcelona to Madrid. Cesc knew that, and he still couldn't shake the nauseating mixture of anticipation and fear that left him alternately dry-mouthed and in a cold sweat. He couldn't help trying to imagine what Xavi Hernández would say, how he would say it, relentless mental circles that always ended at the same self-imposed interruption. He didn't know if it was because of what he thought he would hear, or what he thought he wouldn't

When he couldn't take the stillness any longer he jumped up and wandered restlessly around the apartment, hoping that physical movement might distract him. It didn't.

Villa and Silva were both at work on their laptops, facing each other across the table. Villa's fingers were flying and he was scowling in concentration at the screen; Silva, on the other hand, was engrossed in long periods of reading punctuated by the occasional click.

After Cesc's dozenth restless pass behind his chair, Silva looked up with a slight frown. "Cesc, do you want – "

"Yes," Cesc said, too eagerly. Silva blinked, taken aback, and Cesc's cheeks warmed. "I mean, if there's something I could do..."

Silva looked around, running his fingers through his hair. "Um – I don't know if there's much you could do from here, but I can explain what I'm looking for, if you want?"

"Sure," Cesc said, more careful to modulate his response, and aware his voice was thick with relief all the same.

"Come on over here – oh, sorry, we still haven't got another chair – " He scooted his own chair over and Cesc crouched next to him to look at the screen.

It showed a sleek, streamlined database interface; in the upper left-hand corner was the same seal that was emblazoned on the glass doors of Figo and Raúl's office. "This is the agency's private network," Silva said. "Specifically, this is the case records database." He typed a command and the list on display disappeared as a new one cascaded into being. "I've called up all London files from the past ten years and I'm searching them for..." He trailed off, frowning at the screen, and hit a different key. The list rearranged itself and scrolled downwards as Silva hit another key several times.

Cesc waited, and then when Silva didn't pick up the sentence, prompted dutifully, "You're looking for?"

Silva glanced over at Cesc and gave a small start. "Oh, right, sorry. Um, we've been digging up any records that have to do with A – someone who might be connected to your case. Right now I'm checking for any kind of history he might have with us – witness, subject of investigation, person of interest, anything."

"Have you found anything?"

Silva's eyes skimmed the screen as he answered. "It looks like we've had him on an interest list for a couple shady government contracts, but that's it so far. There's a lot of false hits for his business interests – his subcompanies have got subcompanies, and this is just from London. I'm not even close to done."

Villa made an irritated noise and both Silva and Cesc glanced over. He typed something else, forcefully, and then must have felt their eyes on him because he looked up.

"The holding company in London has decent IT sec," he said, grudgingly. "We might have to get someone from Security to crack it."

A little tendril of interest uncurled. "Are you trying to hack them? Right now?"

"I'm just looking around," Villa said. Then, "Don't look so surprised."

"I'm not," Cesc said, unconvincingly. "I just thought..." _that Silva was the brains_.

Villa eyed him like he knew exactly what Cesc was thinking. "You know anything about computers?"

"A little," Cesc said, which wasn't strictly the truth, but telling a secret law enforcement agent about his abortive teenage forays into script cracking probably wasn't a great idea.

"Come here," Villa said. Silva was already deep into his files again. Cesc moved over to Villa's side of the table.

"Look," Villa said. "Here's the script for the second security challenge. See anything wrong with it?"

Cesc at the lines of text for a long minute. "There's a loophole," he said suddenly. "If you feed it part of its own code it'll be stuck in a recursive loop."

"Right," Villa said. "And once you're past that, you can get at these files here, which looks like last year's financial records. But – "

"They're totally bait," Cesc interrupted. "It's way too neatly constructed, look, if you put in – "

He cut himself off and slid a sideways glance at Villa.

Villa gave him a slow once-over, both eyebrows raised. "'A little', huh?"

Cesc squirmed. "Well – "

"David," Silva said suddenly. His brows were drawn. "Come look at this."

Villa was up without a further word. Cesc seized the opportunity to take his chair. Across the table, Villa leaned over Silva's shoulder and read aloud, "'Investigation into Aeneas Holdings Limited, London: findings inconclusive.' Inconclusive? What the hell does that mean?"

"That there's not enough to keep the case open but someone's too stubborn to write it off," Silva said. "See, it was van Nistelrooy's before he transferred. But look, that's not the only one." He hit another key. "Abramovich Mineral in Prague, Abramovich Petrochemical in Berlin. All three investigations within the last two years. The others were both closed permanently for lack of evidence."

Villa pursed his lips. "You don't get to be a massive industrial tycoon by playing by the rules," he said.

"Van Nistelrooy would know that," Silva said. "He wouldn't try and keep a case open for normal corporate misconduct. Three times? In two years?"

Villa ran a hand over the crest of his hair. "You want to request the full files from London?"

"I – "

Cesc didn't realize how completely and successfully he'd been distracted until Silva was cut off by a sharp rapping.

It took him a moment to associate the sound with the front door, and then only an instant for the gut-twisting anticipation to flood back. His palms were suddenly sweaty. Silva took one look at him and closed his laptop. "David – " he began.

But Villa was already on his feet. Cesc heard the door open, then a low voice he couldn't make out, and then he was looking at Xavi Hernández.

He was short – shorter than Villa – and dark and impassive; his face gave away nothing. His heavy-lidded eyes were on Cesc.

"Xavi," Silva said, with something like relief. Hernández's gaze moved over to him; Cesc felt its absence like the lifting of a physical weight. "Thanks for coming down. You didn't have any problems getting away, did you?"

"I left Andrés in charge," Hernández said. His voice was deep and surprisingly soft. "He can handle anything I can."

His dark eyes returned to Cesc. Cesc swallowed through a throat suddenly dry.

"Could we have the room?" Hernández asked.

"Sure," Silva said. Villa, whom Cesc thought might protest, just collected his laptop and they both retreated down the hall. Silva, just before vanishing, looked over his shoulder and gave Cesc an encouraging little smile.

Without speaking, Hernández crossed the kitchen and took the empty seat. Only a foot away, he returned his unwavering gaze to Cesc.

It didn't feel like intimidation. It was more like Hernández was sure that if he was patient enough he would be able to see into Cesc's mind, something that Cesc was suddenly not entirely sure he couldn't do.

"Francesc Fàbregas," Hernández said eventually, not a question or a confirmation but simply a statement of identity – the first, Cesc realized, that he'd had of his real name in days.

Cesc nodded.

"You know why I'm here?"

Cesc licked his lips. "You're – watching my family?"

"I'm directing the covert security detail on your mother and sister," Hernández said. "I can answer any questions you have. I will." His gaze suddenly became more pressing. "But it won't help unless you trust what I say. Do you?"

Cesc shrugged a little uncomfortably. "If they – if Villa and Silva do – "

"No," Hernández said. "Do you trust me? There's no reason you should yet. But anything I tell you will be useless unless you do."

Cesc examined Hernández carefully. He met Cesc's scrutiny with calm equanimity, neither challenging nor flinching away. Nothing he did dispelled the impression that he wasn't someone to meet alone in a dark street, but something about his presence was – strangely calming.

Slowly, Cesc nodded.

Hernández gave a short nod and said, "Call me Xavi."

Cesc nodded again, then said, "You can call me Cesc. Everyone does."

Herna – Xavi didn't speak any further for several moments. A swell of words, snarled and disjointed, was fighting up Cesc's throat; he tried to make himself stay quiet, because he didn't know where they began, or what exactly they even were. Just they were about to burst from Cesc whether he wanted them to or not, Xavi said, "I grew up in Terrassa. I've lived in Barcelona my whole life – I've been with the office since I was old enough to make them let me join."

"Oh," Cesc said; he didn't know what else he was supposed to say.

"I'm telling you this," Xavi said, "because I want you to understand that I know the town and I know my job when I tell you there hasn't been any – I mean any – sign of suspicious activity around your family. No tails, no watchers, absolutely no threats." Xavi held Cesc's gaze. "Do you believe me?"

Cesc hadn't been conscious of the suffocating iron bands around his throat and chest until they suddenly loosened. "Oh," he said, and then again, not even caring that his voice was wavering dangerously, "Oh. Okay. That's – good – "

He had to stop. With effort he mastered the tide of feeling and, after a minute, was able to say in a steady voice, "Yeah. Yes. I do."

Something in Xavi's expression relaxed. "Good," he said. "What else do you want to know?"

It was almost too much choice. Cesc shied away from the obvious question. "What – what have they been doing? I mean, what..."

"Your mother's family has come to stay with them for now," Xavi said. "Your house is very full."

Cesc tried to smile; he didn't know how well it came out. "All of them?"

"Except the youngest sister," Xavi said. "Lucia. I believe she's in Kenya."

"You know them all?" Cesc started to say, and then cut himself off. "Never mind, sorry. Of course you would."

"We had to vet them all." He added, after a minute, "You have quite a few relatives."

This time Cesc's attempt at a smile was more of a contraction. "They're nice most of the time," he said. "I like them."

"They seem that way," Xavi agreed.

Silence, for another moment. He couldn't avoid it any longer; he had to ask. "And... My mom and my sister, how are they..." Cesc's voice failed him. He swallowed and tried again. "You know. Taking it?"

Cesc thought Xavi looked almost sorry, before he said, "Badly."

"Oh," Cesc said, or tried to; it came out barely more than a ragged breath. He tried to clear his throat. "Do they – do you think they believe – "

"They haven't had time to decide what they really believe," Xavi said when it became clear Cesc wasn't going to be able to finish the sentence.

"Oh," said Cesc. "Okay."

Silence, again. He had to say something else. "Is – how's Carlota handling school?"

"She's excused from classes as long as she likes," Xavi said.

That made Cesc sit bolt upright. "What? She has to go, it's exams."

Xavi said, "I believe the circumstances are considered justifiable."

"No," Cesc said, "she _can't_ , she's been killing herself this semester, she can't just – "

"No one's going to ask her to sit exams when she thinks her brother's just died," Xavi said quietly.

He was having trouble breathing. There was a hot, insistent scratching behind his eyes. Something jagged and painful was rising in his throat. He wasn't going to – not in front of – he just was _not_ –

Xavi didn't say anything; he didn't ask Cesc if he was all right or pretend to ignore him or try to be reassuring. He just sat there, quiet and undemanding, which made it worse. Cesc desperately kept his eyes fixed on his hands, until he realized they were trembling. He gripped the edge of the table, so hard his knuckles went white. His shoulders heaved, once, then again, then again –

He couldn't ignore it, and he couldn't fix it. There was nothing he could do about it, so he had to live with it.

There were tears running down his cheeks after all.

He didn't know how long it was until the worst was over and, little by little, he was able to regain control of himself. When he did, and could bring himself to look up, Xavi was still there. He looked as impassive as ever, for which Cesc was grateful.

"Sorry," he said. His voice emerged scratched and hoarse.

Xavi said, "Don't be."

Cesc took a deep, steadying breath – two of them – and cast around for another question, anything to deflect the conversation. "Do you think they know you're there?"

Xavi considered his question for a minute before answering. "The surveillance itself has mostly been of one location, since they haven't left the house very often yet. Neither of them have acted in any way out of the ordinary, given the circumstances. So no, I don't think so." His mouth twisted faintly upward. "But your sister's bright. We'll have to look out for that."

"I know," Cesc said proudly, before his smile faded. He bit the inside of his cheek, hard, which didn't make it better but was at least a distraction.

"If you'd like," Xavi said, "I could tell you more about what we're doing, as a team."

The eagerness of his own response took Cesc by surprise. "Yes," he said, "that would be – yes – " He nodded, just to be sure, and Xavi almost smiled.

With each word of Xavi's explanation, about their schedule, their methods, the team members, Cesc felt the iron bands loosen more and more, until he couldn't help asking more questions himself. By the time Xavi was describing his team – Iniesta, Valdés, and Rodriguez – Cesc felt almost normal again.

"Are they from Barcelona, too?" he asked.

"More or less," Xavi said. "Iniesta and Rodriguez moved when they were in school, I think. But we tend to stay local, yes."

"Huh," Cesc said. He realized, suddenly, that he didn't know anything about where Villa and Silva were from. Neither of them had Madrid accents. "You've got enough recruits locally? Wait, how big is the office, anyway?"

"It's not the numbers," Xavi said. "It's that we know how to do our job."

Something in the air told Cesc he'd just stepped on a land mine.

"Our office might not be as central as Madrid," Xavi went on, in a voice that was outwardly unchanged but somehow made Cesc want to furiously backpedal all the same, "we might not have the numbers, or, the Virgin knows, the budget, but no one can say we don't know how to do our job. You could even say we do it better, in spite of all those things – "

Cesc risked it. "Hey, I get it, I'm from Barcelona, too. You guys, um, keep up the good work."

Xavi broke off with a dangerously blank expression.

Then, unexpectedly, he _laughed_.

"Um," Cesc said.

It lightened Xavi's whole face, to the extent that Cesc tried not to stare. When he looked at Cesc again, it was with sincere amusement. "You should come up to our office," he said. "They'd like you."

"I wish I could," Cesc said, and didn't realize how much he meant it until he heard his own voice.

"Afterwards you will," Xavi said with certainty. He glanced in the direction of the hall and his mouth turned up.

"I believe we have company again," he said. "Is there anything else you wanted to know in private?" – a faint stress on the final word.

Cesc shook his head. He felt incalculably steadier, steadier than he would have thought possible a few hours ago.

"Thanks," he said, not quite able to meet Xavi's eyes.

Xavi shook his head. "I'm glad I could talk with you," he said, and sounded like he meant it. Then he raised his voice. "You can come out now."

Villa strolled into the kitchen without the slightest appearance of shame. Silva followed, having the grace to look marginally abashed.

"Edifying for you?" Xavi asked dryly.

Villa shrugged. "If we'd really wanted to listen for your classified Barcelona secrets or whatever we could've wired the kitchen. Or Fàbregas."

"I assumed you had," Xavi said, so deadpan Cesc couldn't tell if he was serious or not until Silva laughed.

Xavi finally broke into a smile. "How are you getting along in this godforsaken city?"

Silva laughed again. "It grows on you," he said.

"I'm sure," Xavi said, in the same way one might say _Like a tumor_.

Silva perched on the counter. "How's the office?" he asked.

Xavi's shoulders rose and fell. "We're getting by." He gave them a sly smile and said , "I'm sure you'd both be welcome if you wanted a change of pace."

"Yeah," Villa said, "I bet Raúl would love to see _that_ transfer request."

"Or Figo," Silva said, a mischievous grin flashing across his face. "It would only be fair." He glanced at Xavi. "Though, um, I didn't realize you had the budget for – never mind," he said hurriedly, as Xavi's expression went flat again."Anyway, how's Andrés?"

They tossed several other names back and forth, presumably fellow agents in Barcelona and Madrid. "We saw Pepe in London," Villa said several minutes later. "He says he misses you guys, for some reason."

Xavi snorted. "He always tells _us_ how much he loves England. The last time he was back here – "

He was interrupted by the piercing sound that Cesc had come to associate with Silva and Villa's communicators. They both reached for their pockets, but Xavi was the one who pulled his out and, frowning, flipped it open.

He went very still.

"Xavi?" Silva said sharply as Villa tensed; a second later Cesc realized why and the fear so recently checked came back in a cold rush.

But Xavi didn't say anything, or move so much as a muscle. He merely sat perfectly – unnaturally – still, eyes locked on the tiny screen. He looked, Cesc realized, as though he were trying very hard to make it burst into flames.

As the silence stretched and no one did anything, Cesc's fear slowly receded, to be replaced by puzzlement. He snuck a glance at Silva and Villa.

Villa wasn't tense any more. In fact, there were the clear beginnings of a smirk on his face. Cesc thought for a minute he saw the hint of a grin in Silva's expression before it was gone.

Silva said, "That must be, ah. Tamudo. Again."

Slowly – very slowly – Xavi's head came up. The look he fixed on Silva was about as friendly as a cobra. Silva didn't so much as flinch. After a minute Xavi said, very evenly, "I have to return to Barcelona now."

"Of course," Silva said, nodding. "We completely understand."

Villa's smirk was even more pronounced. As Xavi got up from the chair, Cesc caught Silva's eye and mouthed, _Who?_

Instead of indicating he'd answer later, as Cesc half expected, Silva said in a normal voice, "Tamudo?" Cesc's eyes flicked to Xavi, whose back stiffened, but Silva seemed unconcerned. "Oh, he's probably the toughest crime lord in Barcelona. He's got more lives than a dozen cats – no matter what kind of hits he takes, he's always back for more."

Xavi's back was still to them, ramrod-straight.

"We think he's just trying to get Xavi's attention," Silva continued, one eye on Xavi. The corner of his mouth was curled up mischievously. "Since the flowers didn't work – "

Xavi turned and said something that would have made Cesc's mother wash his mouth out with soap.

That was too much for Villa, who made a noise somewhere between a snort and a guffaw. Silva was openly grinning now. Xavi's poisonous glare could have dropped them both dead where they stood. He turned to Cesc and said, too calmly, "We raided his personal headquarters three years ago. Every single one of his major operations was shut down. Half of his underlings were arrested. Do you know how long it took him to completely rebuild?"

"Um… a couple years?" Cesc hazarded.

"Eleven months," Xavi said. There was a sort of manic look in his eyes now. " _Eleven months_. He may have stayed out of our hands so far but someday – someday – he'll slip and I'll be – " He broke off and shot a searing look at Villa, who made another of those noises.

Visibly restraining himself from speaking, Xavi checked his watch. "I need to catch the next train," he said.

"Good luck," Silva said, sounding contrite – though there was still a suspicious glitter in his eyes. "Honestly. Tell everyone hello."

Xavi appeared willing to accept the overture at face value. "Of course. I'll hear from you again soon." He nodded at Villa, a little shortly, and then turned to Cesc. "Cesc," he said. "They know how to contact me. Get in touch any time you want. I mean it."

"Thanks," Cesc said again, inadequately, and Xavi gave him a last faint smile.

As the door closed behind him, Silva caught Villa's eye. His mouth twitched.

Cesc jumped as Villa started laughing so hard he had to lean back against the wall. Silva, watching him, had a smile that looked like it was trying for innocent but instead lit his whole face with pure mischief. After a minute, he saw Cesc staring and said, "Sorry, it's just – "

"He's obsessed," Villa supplied, and was overcome with a fresh burst of snickers.

Silva tried, with limited success, to school his expression into a modicum of composure. "It's not really fair to him," he said. "Tamudo's endurance is enough to drive anyone crazy and Xavi takes it personally."

"Flowers," Villa said under his breath, and Silva's straight face dissolved.

Cesc looked from one to the other. "Did he really...?"

"Well," Silva said, eyes dancing, "that was the name on the card. Whether or not Tamudo ordered them, I can't say." He glanced at Villa and grinned. "David has a friend who might know, though."

"He's the one in London now," Villa said. "Safe from the long arm of revenge."

That seemed to remind Silva of something, because he gave a regretful sigh. "Speaking of London," he said. "We should probably go by headquarters and see if we can pick up a new assignment. If Figo's back he'll want to see Cesc."

Villa was still smirking as Silva disappeared back down the hall for his jacket. Before he could follow, Cesc said, "Hey."

Villa raised his eyebrows.

Cesc fidgeted. "I just wanted to say, um, about bringing Xavi here – " He broke off. Villa waited. He tried again. "I just – Thanks. For thinking of it."

Villa looked somewhere past him and shrugged. "No big deal," he said.

"No, it really – I mean – " He didn't know how to explain it, but Villa finally met his eyes.

"Yeah," he said, with something that couldn't quite be called a smile. "I know."

Then he reached out, cuffed the back of Cesc's head lightly, and before Cesc could react turned on his heel and strode away.

 

 

As soon as Silva knocked on the door, a deep, familiar voice said, "Come in." Silva looked at Villa, who shrugged, and pushed open the door.

Figo's office was nearly identical to Raúl's, if perhaps larger, only it seemed less starkly intimidating and more coolly restrained. Raúl himself was there, standing by the window; Figo was seated behind a massive desk. Seeing him again, Cesc was reminded vividly of the first night after the explosion, and felt an irrational spike of irritation.

"Villa," Figo said, nodding at them. "Silva."

Villa made a noise of acknowledgement. "How was the trip?" Silva asked.

Raúl turned away from from the window and his eyes met Figo's.

"Productive," Figo said, after a minute. He looked back, this time at Cesc. "Fàbregas," he said. "You're looking much better than the last time I saw you."

"The last time I was sedated," Cesc said, a little mutinously.

Figo's lips twitched. "Recovering from sedation, I believe. Unless there's something I didn't hear." For some reason, he looked at Silva.

"Whatever," Cesc said, and then, taking in Silva's oddly guilty expression, "Wait, what?"

"Cesc's been doing great so far," Silva said hurriedly. "He's been out on the job with us already, even."

"So I hear," Figo said. "I understand you got your hands on Žigić at last."

"Not that it lasted," Silva said, and then when Figo raised an eyebrow, flushed and ducked his head. "Um. Raúl must have told you about everything."

"As a matter of fact," Figo said, looking predatorily amused, "a friend of yours got in touch about Žigić. He mentioned Cesc."

Silva's eyebrows dipped. He glanced at Villa; Villa shrugged. "Got in touch? You don't have an actual press office or anything, do you?" Cesc asked, diverted.

"Well," said Figo. "Not officially. Usually we use mouthpieces here and there. But oddly enough, some people refuse to be satisfied with that." He was looking at Raúl.

Raúl was looking out the window again. His shoulders were so sharply tense they could have cut his suit jacket.

"Oh," Silva said in tones of understanding, looking from Figo to Raúl, and then flushed again.

Villa rolled his eyes. "Yeah, Morientes probably knows something's up with Fàbregas, but he's more interested in why we're bothering with someone like Žigić," he said. "Who knows what he thinks Žigić was really up to."

"Sometimes the truth is so mundane," Figo murmured.

"Maybe he's on the right track," Raúl said, turning to face them. He didn't sound amused. "Arbeloa and Albiol still haven't identified who was responsible for Zigic's escape. Morientes has – good instincts."

"Maybe," Villa said, deliberately unconvinced.

Silva asked quickly, "What did you tell Morientes?"

"That it was confidential," Raúl said. "Which he should know. Does know." He moved over to Figo's desk and began to straighten a pile of papers sitting near the edge. "You must need a new assignment."

"Subtle," Villa muttered. Silva elbowed him in the side.

"Thank you, Raúl," Figo said, with only the slightest hint of dry amusement. He surveyed Villa, Silva, and Cesc. "Something that has nothing to do with major criminal syndicates this time, hm?"

"Which only eliminates eighty percent of our cases," Villa said, rolling his eyes again.

"Sixty-three," Figo said without missing a beat. "As a matter of fact, Raúl and I have been discussing where to put you next. We've come up with a few options. Raúl?"

Raúl picked up the bundle of papers he'd been fiddling with and Cesc saw it was actually several folders. "There are several low risk cases currently unassigned," he said, leafing through them. Cesc didn't miss Villa's expression at 'low risk'. "The tip about the bribes in Foreign Affairs looks like it's good after all... Calderón's reporting invisible followers again.... Customs suspects shipping irregularities for a Danish company working through the port of Valencia... The names that came out of the Brugal case need to be put under long-term surveillance – "

With each description Villa's expression had been getting progressively more appalled; at that he was no longer able to contain himself. " _Surveillance?_ "

Raúl continued unaffected. " – in case there's anything to Ortiz's story. Or Villa, you like computers, there's a string of security breaches – "

"Oh no," Figo interrupted, pleasantly. "I think Villa just volunteered for surveillance duty."

Dismay flashed across Silva's face as Villa gave Figo a look of unmitigated horror.

Figo smiled at him, shark-like. "The surveillance level is one-A. Your backup will be de la Red. The site has been prepped already, so you can finish the setup tonight."

The look Silva shot at Villa didn't promise anything good. Villa's mouth moved soundlessly for a moment before he regained speech enough to splutter, "You – you can't make us do that, we're the highest rated field agents in this whole fucking bureau – "

"All the more qualified," Figo said.

" – with a trainee," Villa steamrolled on, " – who needs field experience – "

"Who needs to stay out of danger and out of the spotlight," Figo said warningly.

Silva made one last effort. "We're still getting nowhere on Cesc's case, I think we should really – "

" – spend all the down time you'll have now working on it?" Figo finished for him. "I agree. And that's final." Silva's shoulders slumped. "Unless you'd rather I find something for you to do in the office," Figo suggested, which shut Villa's mouth as Silva blanched.

Raúl, who had observed the entire exchange in silence, cleared his throat and said, "Is this, ah, the best use of – "

"Yes," Figo said, and Raúl shut up, too.

Figo continued. "Should you uncover a potential lead during the course of your surveillance, you'll report it immediately and coordinate information with whatever agent is assigned to it. You're not to pursue any action yourselves without specific clearance from this office, understand?"

Silva nodded. Villa looked mutinous.

"Villa?" Figo said meaningfully.

"Whatever," Villa growled.

Raúl came forward to hand Silva the folder. "Here are the basics," he said. "I'll have Granero send along the rest." Silva nodded again. "You won't have any trouble coordinating with de la Red, I expect?"

Silva shook his head. "We've worked together before."

"Excellent," Figo said. "Then I'm sure you'll want to get to work right away."

Silva couldn't really say anything to that except, "Right. We'll just – " He reached behind him for the door handle as Cesc edged toward him.

"Good luck," Figo added. "Fàbregas, keep it up."

"Thank you," Silva said, and, "Thanks," echoed Cesc after Silva made a meaningful face at him. Villa only gave the room a dark and indiscriminate glare, as Silva opened the door and shepherded them all out.

None of them spoke until they were free of the outer office, where Silva flopped back against the wall and let out a long sigh.

" _Surveillance_ ," Villa repeated like it was an oath. "We've got one of the best apprehension rates in Madrid and he wants us to sit in some cell and listen to a bunch of fucking idiots talk about shit and maybe hope they give something away. Mother of – " The diatribe descended into a steady stream of invective.

Silva sounded like he was trying to look on the bright side. "Figo's right, it'll give us lots of time to work on Ce – the London case – "

"Are you kidding me?" Villa said, voice spiraling upward, and Silva's spine went up. The look he shot Villa made Cesc take a step back. Villa's voice immediately ground to a halt.

"Sorry," Cesc said into the loaded silence, because he felt like he should offer.

"Oh no," Silva said. "This isn't your fault. Is it, David?"

Villa didn't answer. Silva turned back to Cesc with an expression that was dangerously serene. "You'll have to come along when we set up the site, but David can take the first overnight. Since he volunteered us."

Villa's head came up and he opened his mouth, presumably to protest. Silva gave him a smile with more than a hint of steel.

Villa apparently knew when he was beat. He muttered something furious and unintelligible, turned on his heel and stalked down the hall, shoulders hunched and hair bristling. Silva watched him go for a second before following, at a slightly slower pace.

"Sorry," Cesc repeated, more quietly, as he trailed along.

"No," Silva said, scary calm shifting into to something more rueful. "It's fine. It's not like we haven't done surveillance before. There's just usually been a point to it. Plus, at the end we actually get to bring someone in." He sighed. "But this is better than desk work."

He slowed a bit, allowing Villa to gain on them, before lowering his voice and saying, "Besides, it might not last long. It depends on when Figo decides David's gotten the point."

Cesc imitated his pitch. "What is the point?"

Silva gave him a little smile. "That David might be the best in the field but Figo's still the one in charge." He glanced ahead, at Villa's stiff back, and sighed. "Come on," he said to Cesc in a normal voice, picking up the pace. "We've got a lot of work to do."

 

By the time they pulled up, several hours later, in front of a run-down apartment building in a nondescript neighborhood far from the city center, Villa was if not exactly cheerful then at least no longer glaring at anything that moved, and Silva hadn't mentioned anything about shifts again.

It was dark as they got out of the car, and a light drizzle was falling. A drop of moisture trickled down the back of Cesc's neck as he eyed the drab building. "This is your high-tech surveillance center?"

"It will be," Silva said, retrieving two thin silver cases, each a little larger than a laptop case, from the car. He and Villa had both gotten a pair at Security; Silva said they'd show Cesc what was inside when they set up.

"See the place across the street?" Silva murmured. "The little office building, shorter than the rest?"

Cesc looked, feeling self-consciously surreptitious as he did so. "Yeah."

"That's where the target site is," Silva said. "One of the offices."

Cesc still didn't know exactly what was supposed to be going on there, or what they were supposed to be looking for – or even how they were supposed to be looking for it, other than the fact that apparently it didn't involve sitting in the parking lot and drinking bad coffee all night.

The interior of the building was as drab as the exterior; the walls were marked with faded brown water stains and the hall tiled with peeling linoleum. Cesc couldn't help wrinkling his nose. There was no elevator, of course. After four flights of stairs Cesc was breathing hard, and he was glad when Silva came to a stop a short way down the gloomy hall and unlocked the door marked 4B.

It was a single room, bare to the floorboards except for a moth-eaten couch under the lone window and an incongruously new folding table in the middle of the room, with two matching chairs.

"This is it?" Cesc said.

"Apparently," Silva said. When Cesc glanced over, he looked as about as happy as Cesc felt. "I guess they didn't have much choice."

Villa, coming in behind them, kicked the door shut and moved past to drop his two silver cases on the table with a thud. "I knew it," he said with something akin to grim satisfaction. "I knew it once I saw the address."

Silva set his pair more carefully on the floor and gave Cesc an explanation. "You heard Figo say the surveillance level's one-A? That means – well, it means a lot of things, but one of them is that we can't kick anyone out of their space. And protocol says we have to be within 200 meters of the target site. Otherwise we might as well do it all from headquarters."

"Over my dead body," Villa muttered. He flipped the catches on one of the cases and lifted the lid. Cesc caught sight of an impressive array of coiled wires before Villa extracted a laptop, larger and bulkier than his own, and closed it again.

"I thought you didn't have to watch anyone, like, physically," Cesc said. He looked at the narrow little window. Unless Silva or Villa was going to stand on the couch all day, it wouldn't get them far.

"'We'," Silva corrected, "and no, it's just if something goes wrong or – it's just the rules." He sighed. "Even if we're specifically forbidden from taking any action without office approval."

"Even if there's nothing to take action about," Villa said from where he was doing – something – with the big laptop.

Silva let that go. "Can you give me a hand?" he said to Cesc. "Once we get everything set up I'll explain the rest of the case."

Cesc went forward willingly as Silva pulled Villa's other case over and unlocked it. Cesc's eyes widened as the lid fell back to reveal a freestanding frame supporting a flat blank LCD screen; the bottom half of the case held some kind of heavy keyboard, embedded with several extra controls Cesc didn't recognize.

"This is the audio monitor," Silva said. "It tracks all audio transmissions from the site and records a copy to disk. There's one in Security doing the same thing." He reached around and pressed something on the side of the screen; it flickered to life, displaying a black graphical axis against a white background with a single vertical meter in the center.

Silva knelt to open one of his own cases and stood again holding another laptop. "See that, they haven't been activated yet. We can do that remotely – watch the screen."

Cesc kept his eyes dutifully on the screen as Silva opened the other laptop and tapped several commands. "So the office or whatever is already bugged?"

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Silva nod. "Martínez, probably, he's good at – there we go."

Suddenly the screen split into four columned meters, each wobbling near the lowest setting.

Silva peered around Cesc. "Did that – oh, good."

"They're on now, but there's no noise?" Cesc guessed. "No one's there?"

Silva nodded. "Are the cameras up?" he asked Villa.

"Almost." Villa didn't take eyes from the screen as his fingers moved rapidly across the keyboard. "There's just one that – got it," he said with satisfaction. He swiveled the big laptop around.

They were looking at a grainy four-way video feed. The upper left-hand corner showed a high angle of what looked like a darkened office; of the other three, one was of a similarly dim hallway, one of the exterior of the building Silva had pointed out, and one of what Cesc guessed was the back entrance.

"Martínez or whoever planted the interiors," Villa said. "The others are the city's closed-circuit cameras."

"So... there's no one there now," Cesc said, looking from Silva to Villa. "What are you – we – looking for? Or listening for?"

Villa's face darkened again as Silva said, "Both. And we don't exactly know. "

"You explain," Villa said. "I'll finish the set up."

Silva sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "You might as well have a seat, too," he said to Cesc.

Cesc took the couch. A puff of dust rose in the air as he fell on it heavily and he coughed. Silva, taking the free chair, wrinkled his nose.

"About a month ago, there was an investigation that had to do with smuggling of counterfeit goods," Silva began. "One of the people it dredged up was someone from the Ministry of Commerce, on bribery charges. He was pretty desperate to talk – anything he thought would help him. Among other things, he gave us three names and this address. Supposedly they'd been working their way around to approaching him in – an unofficial capacity, but he hadn't heard what they wanted yet." Silva put a hand to his hair again and gave it an absent tug. "The hints he dropped pointed at handling pirated goods. It might be true."

"Or maybe he was making shit up to save his ass," Villa put in from where he was doing something with Silva's laptop.

"Or that," Silva said, with a little sigh.

"Did he give you other names?" Cesc asked.

"Yeah," Villa said, "names we already had. Bet he knew it, too." He poked at the keys with added viciousness. "The only reason we're even doing this is because they missed out on the real target. Like anyone would care about some pathetic pencil-pusher otherwise."

"We'd have to follow up on it anyway," Silva said. "But..."

"But I'm right," Villa said, glancing up with a knowing twist of his mouth.

"Maybe," said Silva. He gave Villa a wry half-smile in return.

"So," Cesc said after a minute, "we're just supposed to be on the lookout for... anything?" Silva nodded. Cesc looked around the room. "And we're supposed to spend all our time here? Just listening? Do we have to sleep here?"

"See?" said Villa darkly.

"Not quite," Silva said, giving Villa a look. "I said before it's level one-A surveillance – that means least urgent, lowest risk – "

" – lowest probability of actually being useful – "

Silva ignored this contribution from Villa. "So there's only one team on the case – that's us – and a backup – that's Rubén de la Red, you'll meet him later. He's on call in case there's an emergency, or we need relief for some reason. But the important thing is that only one agent has to be present for any surveillance activity, so we don't all have to be here at once, and after the first 72 hours it doesn't have to be round-the-clock, anyway, unless the initial period throws up evidence of some kind of real activity. Which would get the whole thing upgraded at least to two-A, anyway."

Cesc took a minute to digest this. "After the first 72 hours?" he said eventually.

Silva nodded. "That's the standard initial period. We use that to get a general idea of what goes on at the site, what kind of schedule the marks follow. And to make sure there really is no physical threat. Afterwards we'll probably check out the marks off the site – "

"Like, tail them?" Cesc interrupted.

"Sort of," Silva said. He added, at Cesc's expression, "It's usually not that exciting," but Cesc didn't really care.

"Anyway, after we've established their schedule, we can follow it ourselves and review the rest of the footage the next day. Plus, like I said, there's an identical feed at Security and if something funny shows up when we're not there, we get a call." Silva winced. "And Raúl chews us out."

"This happen before?" Cesc asked.

Silva glanced over at Villa, who looked up. Their eyes met and, miraculously, Villa's lips quirked up. "Long story," he said.

They lingered for maybe another hour. Silva fiddled with the audio monitor, testing the recording quality and making several minuscule adjustments to various settings. Villa, long since finished with the cameras, retrieved his own laptop and set it up so that he could keep an eye on the video feed at the same time. Every so often, Silva glanced over at him and then back at his own screen.

Cesc was just wondering if he should ask Silva when he'd be finished when Villa looked up, crossed his arms over his chest and said, "Okay, get out of here already."

Silva started. "What?"

"I said, get out of here," Villa said. "It's stupid for everyone to hang around all night." He gave Silva a wry smile, with a real gleam of amusement. "I asked for it. I can admit it."

Silva smiled back, more genuinely than he had all afternoon. "Okay," he said. "If you say so. We'll be back tomorrow."

Villa leaned back and waved them away. "Yeah, okay, whatever. I'll be here."

Silva looked over his shoulder one last time as they went, at Villa's face lit by the glow of his laptop.

That night, Cesc didn't dream.

* * *

A ray of sunlight lit Villa leaning back in his chair, feet propped on the table and arms crossed over his chest, when David returned with Cesc the next morning. Villa's eyes flicked up from the laptop screen as the door opened and before he said anything David heard the crackle of conversation coming over the audio feed.

" _– could've if they'd played him further up the pitch._ "

" _But that wouldn't have had anything to do with Wilkinson, would it? I counted at least seven fouls that didn't go called – and that tackle, mother of God –_ "

"They've been here for about half an hour," Villa said as David came around to look at the video feed. "García and Reyes. They've been talking about football the whole – oh. Thanks." He took the takeaway coffee cup David held out. Up close David could see faint shadows under Villa's eyes and the shadow of stubble covering his jaw.

David turned to the laptop screen with a small wrench. It showed two men, both of whom David recognized from Raúl's file, one standing at the counter flipping through an account book and the other leaning back at a desk twirling a pen round and round.

"Who are they talking about?" Cesc asked.

Villa shrugged. "Some English team."

Cesc perked up at that. "Really?" He came around, too, and leaned in close to the audio monitor. "The title race is really close this season, the next couple weeks are going to decide everything."

The man at the counter said, " _I don't think the scoreline accurately reflects the quality of, of play last night –_ "

The one seated made a derogatory noise. " _It does. They're hopeless. Your precious Wenger doesn't look like such a genius now, does he?_ "

Cesc's face fell. "Aw, man..."

"Nothing?" David asked Villa, who shook his head.

"Nothing. What a shock."

David gave the small office a closer look. "And it's a... transport company?"

Villa's head thumped back so he was looking up at the ceiling. He recited, "C.B. incorporation, six drivers employed, 1.2 million euros in value of goods moved, 7% net profit margin." At David's surprised glance, Villa picked up the file and dropped it on the table again with a thump. "I've practically got the fucking thing memorized now."

Cesc was still listening intently to the football discussion. David gave him a quick glance, then murmured, "Anything more on London?"

"No," Villa said. "You still thinking about those abandoned cases?"

David hesitated. There was something niggling at the back of his mind, a nebulous sense that there was a piece somewhere he hadn't put together yet. He was used to hunches like those by now, and usually if he left them alone his subconscious would help them along until there was something concrete he could get hold of, but –

"Yes," he said eventually. "Can we – "

Villa gave him a faint, self-satisfied smile and said, "I sent a message to Berlin to put us in touch with van Nistelrooy. We should hear back from him today if we're lucky."

A surprised laugh escaped David and he dropped his head, rubbing a hand over the bridge of his nose. Villa said, still with that curl of the mouth, "I know when you've got your teeth into something."

"Is this about what's his name?" Cesc asked. "Abramovich?" They both turned to look at him. "The guy who doesn't really own that company that wasn't real. Right?"

"Right," David said, after taking a second to decipher that. "We're making sure he really doesn't have anything to do with – the people responsible."

Cesc's brow furrowed. "Hey, what's happening with the guys who were actually there? I know I couldn't pick any of them out, so..."

"Five are in custody, to be held indefinitely. We're slowing the proceedings down because of, ah..." David trailed off.

Cesc waited, then his face cleared and he said, "Me."

David coughed. "Well. Yes." He winced. "We don't actually want to press knowingly false murder charges."

"They're not talking at all," Villa put in. "I was catching up on the procedures in London overnight. No one's saying a single damn thing."

David wasn't exactly surprised, but – "Yeah," Villa agreed.

David glanced at the screen; Reyes and García had fallen silent. Reyes was ticking off something in the account book and García was idly flicking through a magazine.

Villa leaned back in his chair, a movement that was accompanied by the sound of several joints cracking. David frowned. "Okay," he said. "Shift's over. Time for you to go back and get some sleep."

Villa gave an elaborate shrug. "I'm fine," he said, because he was stubbornly contrary like that. "It's no big – " He looked supremely irritated as a jaw-cracking yawn interrupted him.

David didn't say anything; he didn't have to. Villa knew this and gave him a half-hearted glare. "Fine," he said grudgingly, "but it's only going to be a couple hours." He glanced meaningfully at Cesc, who said, "What?"

David knew what he meant – the building wasn't secure like their apartment, or like headquarters. It was probably erring on the side of caution, but that was, after all, their job.

"What?" Cesc repeated, and David said, "Nothing. David?"

Villa got to his feet. His shoulder bumped against David's. "I'll be back," he said. "Soon."

Everything always seemed oddly flat and quiet after Villa left. David took Villa's seat, and after a minute Cesc came over and scooted the other chair around so he could see the screen, too.

"If you want to know who they are, I've got the profiles from Raúl's office here," David offered.

"Okay," Cesc said, so David slid them over and settled back in his chair to watch the stream.

At first, his attention was taken with cataloguing his initial impressions of both men: their mannerisms, speech patterns, clothing. Reyes – the one who liked this Wenger, whoever he was – had a soft face that made him look younger than his age, and was subject to nervous tics. García was several years older, and seemed more of a joker. A glance through the files showed nothing in either of their backgrounds – lower middle class family, moderate amount of school, various jobs here and there – that was particularly unusual. David sighed.

Cesc grew restless quickly, for which David couldn't blame him one bit. After a while, he got up and begin wandering around the room, examining every nook and cranny, which didn't take very long. He made his way over to the optimistically labelled 'half-kitchen' – a sink and a counter and a double burner – in the far corner, where he tried first the faucet, the water from which made them both recoil, and then the burner, which didn't catch.

"No gas, huh?"

"I guess not," David said. "If it had to be switched on separately, the office wouldn't have bothered."

"You should get them to fix that," Cesc said. "What if you were trapped and you needed to, like, fuel an explosion suddenly or something?"

He'd been looking at Ortiz' original deposition just a minute ago; where had it gone? David flicked through the papers in front of him until he found it hiding under García's school history. Remembering Cesc's question, he said absently, "It's fine, we wouldn't need a gas line for that." There was no answer. When he looked back up, Cesc was staring at him.

"What, you can, like, make a bomb in the sink?"

"You don't really need a sink, but – " Cesc's eyes were getting big again. David coughed into his fist.

Next Cesc disappeared into the bathroom. There was a hollow rattling, then the sound of running water, then Cesc's voice saying, "Ew." David laughed under his breath. Cesc reappeared a minute later. "There's a bathtub," he reported. "But I wouldn't use it if I were you."

At almost eleven o'clock by David's watch García and Reyes were joined by the third mark, Helguera – older than either Garcia or Reyes, not prone to smiles. They promptly began rehashing the discussion of the earlier football match, which made Cesc groan and walk over to the other end of the room, hands over his ears.

Every so often the phone rang; the wiretap relayed nothing more than a series of mundane customer inquiries. David paid close attention anyway, just in case there was a pattern to note later.

A real live customer showed up, which brought Cesc back to David's side to scrutinize the new arrival with determined concentration. The man did nothing, however, but arrange for the transport of some large piece of furniture and pay for it by check. In the background, García's head was drooping toward his desk.

David noted the customer's name anyway and looked him up on the network. Corporate employee, three traffic tickets, good credit. No flags, no criminal record. Dead end.

Cesc yawned. Helguera slapped García on the back of the head, making him jerk upright. Conversation started up again, first centered on a model whose name David vaguely recognized, before moving on to women in general. David coughed; Cesc looked a little red. Eventually García departed with some words about inspecting one of the trucks. Soon afterwards, the other two left for the midday break.

David checked his watch again. It was nearly two o'clock. As if echoing his thoughts, Cesc's stomach growled.

"Sorry," Cesc said.

"It's fine," David said automatically, thinking. He hadn't thought about lunch – more specifically, he hadn't thought about the fact that he couldn't send Cesc out, or leave himself, but neither could they leave the site together. Calling Rubén in just so they could take a lunch break probably wouldn't be –

On cue, there was the sound of a key in the lock and the door swung open, revealing David Villa and several containers of takeaway.

He'd shaved and his hair was damp. The circles under his eyes were gone. "Thought you might want these," he said.

Cesc's face was a mask of beatific gratitude. David thought his own wasn't too far off, especially when the contents were revealed to be fairly suspect Chinese, which happened to be David's favorite.

For a while there was no conversation. When the containers were sufficiently decimated that David was reduced to poking his chopsticks in the corners for the last tidbits, Villa, who had evicted Cesc from the other chair, said, "I'm making a wild guess you didn't pick up anything."

David's mouth was full of lo mein. He shook his head, swallowed, and said, "The third one showed up, though. Helguera." Villa waited, eyebrows raised, and David shrugged. "He's kind of quiet, but in a normal way. The other two pretty much do what he says."

Villa leaned back. "He's the boss?"

David shrugged. "Unofficially, at least."

Cesc had moved over to the arm of the couch. Villa glanced over, then said, "Hey, Fàbregas." Cesc looked up. Villa set his chopsticks down and pushed away from the table. "You left something behind." He drew one of the guns from his shoulder holster and held it out.

For a second, Cesc gave it a blank stare, then his eyes got big. "Oh. Oh, shit, sorry, I just – I didn't think about it, I guess – "

"Yeah, I figured," Villa said. "Don't do it again. As long as you're with us, don't ever leave without it, and know exactly where it is when you don't have it on you."

Cesc got up and came over to take the gun carefully, letting its weight rest in one hand. "Can I – "

David didn't hear whatever it was he was going to ask, because at that moment his mobile buzzed, and the name on the screen made him sit bolt upright.

"David," he said. "It's Raúl Albiol."

Villa immediately went abandoned whatever he'd been saying as David said, "Hello? Raúl?"

" _David!_ " The barely-suppressed excitement in Raúl's voice came over the line loud and clear. " _Guess what? We've got some good news for you_."

David's grip on the handset tightened. "Žigić?"

" _You got it_ ," Raúl said. " _We know who's got him. And I bet you'll never guess who._ "

"No?" David said, glancing at Villa, who was leaning forward in his chair.

" _Actually that part's not so good news, but we never would have tracked it down on our own, so –_ "

"Raúl – "

" _– overall I'm calling it good that we caught a break like we did. Man, and I thought that thing with Rossi and the Americans was weird –_ "

"Raúl," David interrupted. " _Who?_ "

He could hear the grin in Raúl's voice. " _Has anyone ever mentioned that Villa's made you grabby?_ "

"He hasn't made me anything," David said with what he thought was pretty impressive patience, given the circumstances. "Are you going to tell me, or – "

" _Okay, if you're going to get all prickly about it_ ," Raúl said, laughing at him. " _Are you ready?_ " If anyone's partner had rubbed off on them, it was –

" _It's Raúl Tamudo_ ," Raúl said.

David's jaw dropped. After he found his voice, he said, "You're kidding me."

" _Nope_ ," Raúl said, sounding deeply pleased with his reaction. " _Total coincidence – there was a bust at one of Tamudo's safehouses this morning and one of the Barcelona agents caught sight of him._ "

Of course: that must have been why Xavi had been called away. "You're kidding," David repeated, and out of the corner of his eye he caught sight of Villa leaning half out of his chair as his eyes bored into David. _Who the fuck?_ he mouthed.

David covered the mouthpiece with one hand. "Tamudo," he said, and had the rare pleasure of seeing David Villa completely dumbfounded.

He took his hand away and said, "Raúl, I'm putting you on speaker. Tell us everything that happened."

" _I told you Villa was making you grabby_ ," Raúl said, just – of course – as the speaker went on, so that both Villa and Cesc heard him. Villa gave the mobile the evil eye.

Blithely unaware, Raúl explained. " _It's all thanks to Senna – he regained consciousness the same day we saw you, did anyone tell you that?_ "

In the mess of Xavi and Cesc and surveillance, David – hadn't _forgotten_ about Senna, exactly, but he hadn't thought about him, or about Joan. His face must have shown what he felt, because Villa's brows went down in a familiar expression.

"Don't even start," Villa warned in a low voice.

David shook his head involuntarily. "I'm not, I – " Villa's frown deepened and David stopped, brought to a halt by a mix of helplessness and guilty warmth.

"What's that?"

Villa raised his voice. "Nothing. No, we didn't hear. Good. What did he see?"

" _Well, he thought one of the faces looked familiar. You know he did his post-training rotation up there. But he couldn't place it, so we just told Barcelona to keep an eye out for any sign of Žigić, just in case. And yesterday after the bust we heard back from that kid Krkić. Turns out he knows Žigić from those old 'family connections' of his and recognized him right away._ "

Villa interrupted. "But they didn't get their hands on him?"

" _Nope. It looks like Tamudo's guys were tipped off ahead of time. Barcelona got there just as they were clearing out._ " Raúl paused. " _It sounds like maybe someone screwed up on the scene, too. Krkić seemed pretty down and I didn't feel like pushing him yet. We're headed up to Barcelona today, so we'll hear it all soon enough anyway._ "

"You're too nice, Albiol," Villa said.

" _I guess, compared to you._ " Raúl was grinning again, David could tell. " _Anyway, I've gotta go, we have to make the next train. Just wanted to keep you in the loop._ "

"Thanks," David said. "Really. Keep us updated, okay?"

" _Sure_ ," Raúl said cheerfully. " _See you_." The line cut off.

For a minute, they just stared at each other. Then David said, "Xavi's going to be disappointed."

"Fuck, _I'm_ disappointed," Villa said. "What the hell was Tamudo doing getting himself tangled up with Žigić? I know he's not actually stupid."

"Maybe it was one of his underlings," David said, testing the idea. "I know Tamudo works on a local scale, but there's no way he can personally oversee every single decision in his web."

Villa snorted. "Yeah? Then whoever it was sure won't last long in Barcelona, with judgement like that."

"Well," David said, "the alternative is that we've been wrong about Žigić all along."

Villa looked like he badly wanted to shoot that idea straight down. He was too good at his job to do that, though. With extreme reluctance, he said, "Maybe. I guess. _Maybe_."

Since that was about how David felt, he didn't press it further. He didn't have to ask to know they'd be reviewing everything they knew or thought they knew about Žigić later.

"Maybe he knows something," Cesc said. When they both looked at him, he said, "Žigić, I mean. Maybe, like, he knows something and this Tamudo guy has to work with him whether he wants to or not."

"Huh," Villa said, which David knew meant _That's not actually a bad idea_.

David frowned, thinking aloud. "Žigić was in Warsaw before this, and Belgrade before that. Last I checked, Tamudo still doesn't like operating outside of Spain. It's not impossible – "

" – but pretty damn unlikely," Villa finished.

Cesc looked slightly crestfallen, so David added, "Good thinking, though, and it's not out of the question. Anyway, it's Albiol and Arbeloa's job to figure out why. And Xavi's."

"Officially or not," Villa said, with a snort. "Speaking of unhealthy obsessions – " He leaned over and came up with a thick bundle of newsprint, which he thumped down on the table. "I got the papers while I was out."

He thumbed through the pile, extracted a folded paper, and tossed it to David. David caught it one-handed and flipped it over so the masthead was visible.

It was the latest issue of _El Che_. "Check on your friend Mata," Villa said.

David spread the pages out on the table. Cesc came over to look over his shoulder. "'Interview With A Vampire,'" he read aloud from the lead headline. "'Factory Foreman Spills Shocking Secrets of Corporate Bloodlust.'"

He looked at David, skepticism written all over his face.

"You'd be surprised," David said. "Really."

"If you say so," Cesc said, clearly unconvinced.

Villa was opening the sober pages of _El Pais_. Cesc began to flick through the remaining papers in the pile, and David gave his attention over to _El Che_.

Juan's byline appeared under a story on a warehouse theft, and another on the criminal trial of a local official. David suspected he was responsible for the anonymous police blotter notes, too; his style wasn't as overtly belligerent as that of his editors, but he could skewer with the best of them.

For a while, the room was quiet but for the rustle of newsprint pages. Then, slowly, David became aware of a strange muffled clicking sound. He looked up, and realized Cesc wasn't standing at the table any more. He was sitting cross-legged on the floor, angled slightly away, so that the movement of his arms was shielded. David didn't have any trouble figuring out was he was doing, though: assembling, loading, and dissassembling the gun Villa had brought.

David looked to his side. Villa had glanced up, too, and was watching Cesc with a distinctly satisfied expression. When he saw David looking, he immediately returned his attention to the pages on the table. David hid a smile.

García and Reyes returned, without Helguera. There were exactly two more phone calls, and no more customers. García amused himself flicking little balls of paper at Reyes, until Reyes threatened to stuff them down his throat. They debated the merits of high-definition home video versus the cinema. Villa made a pained noise; David looked over, and saw him tearing methodical little strips in the edge of _El Pais_ ' front page, without seeming to be aware of it.

Eventually, Villa stood up to paced back and forth around the room. Cesc, in return, came back over to take his spot. Cesc didn't say anything, just flipped aimlessly through the papers. Eventually, looking dubious, he pulled _El Che_ over. When David next looked over, several minutes later, he was still reading, mouth slightly open.

Villa flopped on the couch, tapping his fingers restlessly on one knee. David got up and took his turn walking a wide circle around the perimeter of the room to keep from stiffening up, rolling his shoulders slowly. Returning to his laptop, he checked his email; still nothing from van Nistelrooy.

At long last, the clock on the office wall ticked over to seven o'clock. García grabbed his jacket and his voice, slightly fuzzy over the stream, said, "Time for me to get out of here." Reyes followed suit and they disappeared below the camera angle, a moment before the lights went out.

Villa let out a long, explosive breath. "One down, two to go."

David stretched, shoulders and neck cracking, and flopped back in the chair. "You two can leave if you want," he said. "Just, if you don't mind, bring me something to eat first."

"You'd better – " Villa started to say, but before he could finish, Cesc said, "I was thinking, shouldn't I stay?"

They both turned to look at him.

"I mean, I know I don't have to, but..." Cesc looked a little uncomfortable, but also – resolute? "I shouldn't just... you know."

David thought he actually understood what Cesc was trying to say. Villa glanced at David; David tilted his head and lifted his shoulders. Villa ran a hand over this back of his head and said, "Okay, Fàbregas. If you want. But remember, you asked for it."

"I don't mind it so far," Cesc said, looking a little brighter. Villa gave him a look of pure disbelief and turned away, shaking his head.

When Villa asked him what was so funny, David, hand over his mouth, said, "Nothing."

 

It was some time after midnight when David glanced up to see Cesc fast asleep on the couch, one arm flung over the side. He couldn't help smiling, a little.

Villa was prowling around the room like he always did when he was deep in thought, crisscrossing the edges of David's peripheral vision. David himself had managed to leave his laptop alone for several hours, before returning to the records database almost compulsively. He just couldn't help the feeling that if he looked hard enough, he'd suddenly get it, the piece that just barely eluded him.

He'd reread van Nistelrooy's final report three times now. Whatever he was missing, he wasn't going to find it there. On impulse, he called up all recent files from Barcelona. It was probably too early to find anything about the failed raid, but it didn't hurt to check, just in case.

Footsteps moved in his direction. David scrolled past a witness transcript, three minor case briefings –

A warm hand rested on his neck. "What've you got?"

David didn't shiver, because he had better control of himself than that, but he couldn't do anything about the ripple down his spine. "Nothing new," he said. "I was just checking to see if there was anything from Barcelona yet."

Villa's hand slipped away, and he came around and leaned against the edge of the table. "Still nothing from van Nistelrooy?"

David shook his head, without taking his eyes from the screen. "Maybe he's on a case himself."

Villa crossed his arms. "Yeah. Maybe."

Silence. David kept scrolling, but he wasn't seeing anything anymore. He didn't trust himself to look up – not in the dark, not with Villa so close.

Villa spoke again. "You know being on twenty-four hour surveillance doesn't mean you have to work all twenty-four hours."

David made a wordless noise of assent.

He felt rather than saw Villa leaning forward, and then there was an arm brushing his and a hand braced against the back of his chair. "Hey," Villa said in a low voice.

David looked up.

Villa kissed him. For a fraction of a second David was still, then his hand slid up to Villa's collar, and over Villa's shoulder. His mouth opened, to meet Villa's. His eyes fell shut, and he let himself forget, for just a minute, everything that wasn't the muscles of David Villa's shoulder shifting under his grip or David Villa's hand against his side or David Villa's warm mouth on his.

When they had to break apart, eventually, David made himself pull back.

"Can't," he whispered. "Not here."

Villa made a low, dissenting noise against the corner of David's mouth. David agreed. But – His head turned involuntarily toward the couch, where Cesc was fast asleep.

Villa followed his glance. After a second, he exhaled heavily, breath tickling David's ear. "Yeah," he said. "Okay." His lips brushed David's jaw as he pulled back. David had to clench his hands for a minute. His breath was coming unsteady.

Villa had leaned back, but he hadn't moved away. With effort, David cleared his dry throat. "I know I don't. Have to. I just, I know there's something I'm missing."

"You'll get it," Villa said. "If it's there to get."

Something flared in his chest. He should be used to this by now. He looked down for a second, then back up, not quite meeting Villa's eyes, and said, "Yeah."

"You'll get it," Villa repeated. He stood, and was still for a moment. Then he reached out and brushed his knuckles lightly along the arch of David's cheekbone, before turning away.

After a minute, David made himself look back at his laptop screen. His fingers on the keys were only a little shaky.

He couldn't seem to focus on what he was looking for now. He found himself reading the same paragraph for the second – or was it the third? – time, then realized it was the wrong article anyway. The screen blurred, and he had to blink several times to get it to refocus.

He thought he felt eyes on him, but when he glanced up, Villa was frowning absent-mindedly at the wall, hands in his pockets.

He yawned, and then, a second later, yawned again.

The streams were still quiet. Maybe he'd just put his head down for a minute...

He thought he felt something brush his hair, but by then he was already slipping over the edge.

* * *

Cesc awoke groggy and dry-mouthed sometime before the sun rose. A faint grey light lit the room. It was very quiet.

Villa was leaning back in one of the chairs, one arm slung over the back as he tapped at his laptop with the other hand. Next to him, Silva was slumped over the table, head pillowed on his arms.

Villa looked up as Cesc got up, rubbing at his eyes, and padded over to the table. "I thought you guys didn't need sleep," he whispered.

Villa didn't deign to answer that. Instead he reached out and shook Silva's shoulder, surprisingly gently, and said in a low voice, "Hey."

Silva was upright immediately. "What?" he said fuzzily. "What's – " He looked around, blinking bleary eyes, before they focused on Villa, then on Cesc.

"Take Fàbregas back and clean up," Villa said. "And get a couple hours of real sleep."

Silva scrubbed at his eyes. "I just did – you should go, I can just – "

"Yeah, I don't think so," Villa said. "We've already got the assignment from hell, no fucking way are either of us going to make ourselves any more miserable than we have to be."

"I – " A yawn escaped Silva as he tried to cover it in vain. "Okay," he said at last. "But – "

"Three hours," Villa said. "Got it?"

Silva must really have been tired, because he just nodded, and then yawned again. Villa added, "Don't get yourself in a wreck without me driving," which must have been a familiar reference, because Silva smiled.

Silva was utterly focused behind the wheel, and Cesc thought it was pretty rich of Villa, of all people, to comment on anyone else's driving, right up until Silva zipped past a delivery truck on a narrow two-lane street and avoided the car coming the other way with centimeters to spare. When his heart started beating again, Cesc realized that it wasn't Silva was a bad driver so much as a very good one, but that didn't do a lot to quell the adrenaline rush.

At least they got back to the apartment quickly. Silva let Cesc shower first, which was nice, because Cesc was starting to feel pretty disgusting. Then, while Cesc stood in the kitchen eyeing the refrigerator and wondering if he should try and go back to sleep himself, Silva drifted back out, said – not sounding entirely there – "Yell if anything happens and I'll wake up," and disappeared again.

Which effectively ensured Cesc wasn't going to close his eyes of his own volition. There was a sports daily a couple days old lying on the counter, so he sat down at the kitchen table with that instead. Somewhere around the Atlético-Rayo Vallecano recap, his eyelids started to feel heavy. The next thing he knew, Silva was standing next to him saying, "Cesc?"

His eyes snapped open. "I'm awake," he said, too loudly.

Silva looked as refreshed as if he'd had a full night's sleep. Cesc checked his watch just to be sure: three hours on the dot. He rubbed his eyes, and followed Silva back to the car.

Back at the surveillance site, García and Helguera were moving around the tiny screen and Villa's relatively mellow mood from earlier had vanished.

"They're talking about fucking _Eurovision_ ," he said.

Silva winced. "And there haven't been any – " Villa gave him a look. "No. Okay."

The minutes ticked slowly by. A couple newcomers showed up to schedule transport or, once, to argue over a bill; Silva dutifully ran each one through the database and reported more or less clean records for each.

There wasn't even any football talk to keep things interesting. Cesc tried to read the original deposition from Ortiz, the man who had named Helguera and Reyes and García in the first place, but it didn't make for very light reading. From the transcript, it seemed a lot like Ortiz was in love with the sound of his own voice. He repeated himself every other sentence, or maybe Cesc was just reading the same thing over and over. The names started to blur together. When Cesc absolutely couldn't take any more, he checked his watch.

It had been thirty minutes.

He let out a heavy sigh and flopped back on the couch.

Villa, who was fiddling with some tiny piece of electronic equipment, muttered something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like, "Told you so."

"How long is this supposed to go on for, again?" Cesc asked. "After tomorrow?"

"Forever," Villa said in a dire voice.

Silva appeared to be totally wrapped up in whatever he was doing on the computer. He didn't look up as he answered, "Well, assuming we don't ever pick up on anything worth investigating – probably about a week or two?"

Cesc blanched.

Villa tossed the – whatever it was – on the table. "If they just wouldn't talk so fucking much," he said. "Then we could just keep an eye on the video, whatever. But no, we have to actually pay attention to all this shit about urban legends and fucking Eurovision and bad football."

" _Hey_ ," Cesc said. Villa made a dismissive sound.

Silva was still glued to his screen. Cesc rolled his head over. After listening to the click-click-click of Silva's mouse for a minute, he asked, "Do you guys always have to spend so much time on research?"

"No," Silva said, after a pause that was just a second too long.

Villa gave a snort of laughter and told Cesc, "He's not doing research any more. He's playing Minesweeper."

Silva took his eyes from the screen long enough to give Villa a dirty look, but his cheeks were red. Villa grinned.

Eventually, Reyes came in and there was a little talk about the midweek fixtures coming up, which at least kept Cesc interested for half an hour or so. The office closed for midday again; Villa left to get them lunch. When they were all done, he said, "My turn now," shrugged out of his shoulder holster, sacked out on the couch, and was asleep within seconds.

Not long after, García returned on his own. He sat as his desk and for a few minutes filled out some kind of paperwork. Then, as Cesc and Silva watched, he leaned back in his chair, propped his feet up on the desk, and promptly went to sleep.

"I guess they save the conversation for when Villa's awake," Cesc said, which made Silva laugh.

Silva himself finally abandoned his laptop and moved over to the far wall, where he braced an arm and a leg and began some kind of complicated stretching exercise. Cesc, equally impressed and disturbed, watched him bend himself into increasingly painful-looking positions, with every appearance of satisfaction.

A thought occurred to him. "Hey, can I borrow your laptop?"

Silva turned his head and made an apologetic face, which looked kind of bizarre on top of the pretzel-like twist he was holding. "Sorry, but – they're agency computers, and we're not really supposed to…"

Cesc sighed.

After a while, Helguera returned, waking García with a sharp slap to the back of his head, and Silva moved back to the table to keep an eye on the video stream. Not long after that, Villa woke up. The first thing he did was check his watch.

"Almost down to twenty-four hours," he said. He picked up the abandoned holster and moved over to the table. From one of the silver cases sitting under the table, he retrieved a rag and a small bottle of oil, and began to clean his gun.

Over the audio feed came the sound of a door opening and closing. "Customer," Silva reported. His head was slumped on his hand. Cesc wandered over, just to check him out: a mousy guy with bad hair. He gave his name and order number. Silva's keys clacked; a minute later, he said, "Clear. Again."

Villa, polishing the barrel, made a distant noise of acknowledgment without looking up.

Mousy guy wanted to pay in cash. García okayed it. Mousy guy handed over a thick roll of bills. García wrote a receipt. Cesc began to lose interest.

Then, as the door closed and Cesc turned away, García's voice said, " _Cash. Nice. Think it's enough?_ "

Cesc turned back around in time to see him toss the roll in the air, catch it again, and flip through the bills. " _Twenty-five hundred_ ," he said. " _Not bad_."

" _Get the other book_ ," Helguera said.

Silva stiffened. "David," he said.

The high angle of the camera showed García disappear below the counter; a minute later he stood again, holding a locked strongbox. He unlocked it, withdrew a fat hardcover notebook, and laid it on the counter, next to the account book that had been used for every transaction until now.

"David," Silva said. "They've got a second set of books."

Villa's hands stilled. Very, very slowly, he looked up.

" _What do you want it down as?_ " García said, pen poised over the page, as Villa came over to stand behind them.

Helguera shrugged. " _Services rendered_."

García scribbled something in the book with a flourish, then closed it and returned the it to the strongbox. " _Done._ "

" _Might as well lock up_ ," Helguera said. " _I think we're done for the day_."

García made some joke and knocked a fist against Helguera's shoulder; Helguera looked at him without expression. García hit the lights, and the door closed behind them.

Silva sat back, slowly.

"Okay," he said.

Villa was still staring at the screen. Like a sleepwalker, he moved over to the empty chair and sat down. His head drooped forward until it rested gently on the table. Then he banged it against the surface so hard Cesc jumped.

"David," Silva said, sounding distressed.

"You – have – got – to – be – fucking – kidding – me – "

Each thud made Cesc winced in sympathy. "David," Silva said again, which made Villa still, though possibly just so he could say, "Fucking _accounting_."

"Come on," Silva said coaxingly, "if that's all it is then we can shove it off on AEAT in a few days."

Villa's head shot up. His eyes were a little wild. "It's not even – what the fuck, what did we do to get stuck with these? First fucking _Žigić_ , now these idiots who keep their fucking illegal books under the fucking counter – "

"At least that way it's on video – "

" – and because it's _surveillance_ we can't even go over there and slap a pair of cuffs on them and get this whole fucking thing over with." His head returned to the table with a thud.

"No," Silva said, a note of exasperation creeping into his voice, "maybe because that's not what we're normally supposed to do, anyways."

Villa's head rolled to the side and he glared at Silva. "I hate this job," he said.

Cesc shifted from foot to foot. "So will we have to stay here around the clock after all?"

"N – I hope not," Silva said, which wasn't as definite as Cesc would have liked. "We have to report it to Figo or Raúl first – that's what Figo meant about leads. It's not like they're moving contraband after hours or anything so we shouldn't have to, but…"

"But Figo's a sick bastard sometimes," Villa said, muffled by the table.

Silva didn't even try to deny it. What he said to Cesc, as he tapped at his mobile, was, "Sometimes he has other things in mind."

Villa heaved himself upright, though only to cross his arms and glower at the table while Silva waited, phone to his ear. All of a sudden, Silva straightened.

"Hello? Figo?" he said. "It's Silva. I – " He stopped, and his brows drew together. "You were? Really? What – oh no, I – oh. If you're sure? Well, um. We found something after all."

He paused, presumably to listen to Figo. "It looks like they're keeping double books. We just saw them record a cash payment off the record. Uh-huh. It's all on video. That's the only thing out of the ordinary so far, but should we – no, we've still got around twenty-four hours left." Silva listened for a minute, then took a deep breath and said in a rush, "Actually, I was thinking that since it's pretty clear they're not involved in anything on, um, our scale, maybe we should just turn this straight over to – " He stopped again, and his face fell. "Oh. I mean, we will. Okay. No, that's all. Sorry, what did you want to ask about?"

Whatever Figo said made Silva's face change. "Tomorrow? Even though we're still – yes. Of course. We'll be there. Thank you."

He took the phone away from his ear, and Villa immediately said, "So?"

Silva ran a hand through his hair. "Good news, we can still drop the round the clock hours if nothing else comes up. Bad news, we're still on the case for now." Villa opened his mouth, but Silva was still talking. "But there's something else. We'll have to call Rubén, because Figo wants to see us first thing tomorrow morning."

Villa looked disconcerted. "What – "

"He wouldn't say over the line," Silva said over him.

They looked at each other for a minute.. Villa was frowning; Silva's mouth was tight.

After a minute, Villa said, "Got it."

Silva turned to Cesc. "Tonight, do you want to – "

Cesc said, "I'll stay."


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because someone asked - yup, this is on LiveJournal as well, at the same username. Though I usually update at LJ and AO3 around the same time. :)

The first thing Figo said was, "Fàbregas, you'll need to step out."

"What?" Cesc said. "Me?"

Figo just looked at him. Cesc in turn looked at David, who gave what he hoped was an encouraging nod. "Wait in the outer office, if you don't mind," Figo added. Cesc looked back at him; for moment, David thought he was going to protest, but when he finally spoke, all he said was, "Okay." He slipped out the door.

It only heightened the feeling of unease that had been hanging over David since he'd picked up the call the night before. Something important enough to bring them off the site when they'd just picked up suspicious activity, important enough to send Cesc out wandering around the office unsupervised; something Figo didn't think he could talk about even over the secure comm line.

David had a hunch, and he didn't like it.

Figo rested his elbows on the desk and clasped his hands as he examined them silently. David met his assessing gaze straight on.

The silence stretched longer than he expected. David resisted the urge to glance at Villa. Finally, Figo said, "Albiol and Arbeloa have been up in Barcelona."

"We heard," David said. "Ra – Albiol told me – " he paused to count backwards, " – two days ago. Monday. Before they headed up."

"Really," Figo said. "Have you heard from him since they arrived?"

"No," David said slowly. "Not at all."

It wasn't entirely surprising – it had only been two days, and they might have been too busy investigating, or might not have found anything worth calling David over. But something about Figo's silence, his dark eyes drilling into David, said it was more than that.

"We heard about the raid on Tamudo's safehouse, if that's what you mean," David ventured, when Figo still didn't speak.

"I see," Figo said.

Another long silence.

Finally, Figo leaned forward. "You were here when you got the call on Žigić," he said. "Correct?"

This time David did glance at Villa, who was looking back at him. He gave Figo a slow nod.

Figo said, "You know what I'm asking."

David knew. His gut dropped.

Villa said brusquely, "There was no one. We got the call, got the car, went to the site."

"Silva?"

David's lips were dry. "He's right," he said. "There was no one else there when we got the call. We didn't see anyone on the way, or talk to anyone. No one."

Figo exhaled, and leaned back in his chair. He didn't look surprised, but he didn't look happy, either. "All right," he said. "Thank you. I'll be out of – "

"Wait," Villa said, cutting Figo off. "Mori."

David's mouth dropped open – then he understood. "Oh," he said, "Mori – sorry, Inspector Morientes, from the CNP?" Figo nodded. "He mentioned, when he showed up last time, that he knew we'd gotten Žigić because – "

"Because he was tapping a protected communications system," Figo said conversationally. "I should haul him in for that."

David blanched. "What? Uh, I don't think he was – "

"Oh, I won't," Figo said. "But I should. His personal grudges don't give him license to interfere with an independent agency simply because he's an officer of the law."

David wasn't really sure what to say to that, before Figo went on. "As a matter of fact, Raúl already shared that particular piece of information. Morientes isn't out of the picture himself."

"Um," David said. "I really meant, if he could have done it, then someone else – "

"That's a point," Figo said, cutting him off. The word "good" was notably absent. He continued, "In any event, I'm leaving this afternoon. In my absence, Raúl's word is to be considered mine. No questions, Villa."

Villa, for once, didn't rise to the bait. Instead he said bluntly, "So you think it was all leaked."

Figo said, "That's all, thank you."

They stared each other down. For a minute David debated whether or not he should speak up; he decided it was probably for the best. He cleared his throat, and two pairs of eyes turned on him.

"I – sorry, we were just wondering, maybe we could talk about our assignment?"

"Oh, yes," Figo said blandly. "You must be glad it hasn't turned out to be as useless as you thought, after all."

Villa stiffened; David instinctively put out a restraining hand and kept talking. "Yes – well, I mean – we didn't get a chance to talk about it much yesterday, but I, I mean we, wanted to reiterate that maybe, given the nature of the, um, crime, maybe a different investigative body might be more – more appropriate – "

Figo began, "Did it ever occur to you that this might not be entirely about – "

They never heard what it wasn't entirely about, because at that moment the office door banged open and Esteban Granero shot inside. "Sorry to interrupt – we just got a call – " He suddenly seemed to notice Villa and David, and stopped.

"Go ahead," said Figo.

"It's Sneijder and Higuaín," Granero said. "They're requesting back up."

David felt Villa go stiff and straight like an arrow.

"They're on Ruano's tail, they're not sure if he's trying to go to ground or get out of the city," Granero went on. "They're headed away from the city center. There's a local officer in the area, but – " He made a face.

"Inept or uncooperative?" Figo said.

"Higuaín didn't say. But they want someone to help cut Ruano off. Right now."

David's eyes were glued to Figo. His hand was still on Villa's arm, which was tense; he didn't need to look at Villa to know their expressions were identical.

Figo glanced at them, accidentally met David's eyes, and dropped his head, muttering something under his breath.

"Sir?" Granero said.

Figo raised his head. "Tell them a secondary team will be dispatched within two minutes. Go."

Granero was gone. Villa took a breath, like he was about to speak, and David tightened his grip on the arm he still held. He was not going to let Villa do the talking here.

Figo drew a breath, and David said quickly, "Officially requesting permission to provide back up." He kept going before Figo could respond. "We're especially experienced in pursuit, we're in close proximity, and most importantly, we're able to move immediately."

"You have an existing assignment," Figo countered.

"Our relief is alert and on site," David said immediately. "He can stay another couple hours, easy."

"You're responsible for Fàbregas."

"Ruano has no ties with the syndicate," David said. He couldn't help adding, "Besides, Cesc's a pretty good shot."

Figo, poker face impeccable, looked from him to Villa, who was completely rigid. David dropped his voice and said fervently, "I would really – we would _really_ appreciate it if – "

Figo sighed gustily and said, "Oh, go ahead."

Villa was free of David's hand and out the door even as David nearly sagged with relief. "Thank you – seriously – "

"Keep Villa from causing too much damage," Figo said. "If you can."

"Right," David said, and went after him.

 

One minute Cesc had been chatting with the blond kid – Canales – about football and trying not to stare at the door to Figo's office, especially after Curly Hair had gone diving in and back out again; the next Villa had burst out of the door and past him in a spiky blur, calling at Cesc, "Come on, we're moving." A minute later Silva had followed at a similar clip, snagging Cesc's arm as he went. Cesc stumbled to keep up, tossing a quick good-bye over his shoulder at Canales, who looked utterly unfazed. Then they were in the car, zooming down the street at top speed, and Silva was trying to explain something about drug runners.

" – so we're hoping to cut them off before they get to the highway, or before Sneijder goes crazy."

Cesc blinked. "What?"

Silva wasn't listening any more; he was on his mobile communicator. "Rubén? Yeah – no, we just left. Listen, we got a call to come in as back up, we need you to stick around a while longer. Great. Thanks. See you." He hung up and rummaged around, coming up with some kind of wire. He hooked it to the handheld and jammed the earpiece in his ear, then handed an identical one to Villa, who put it in one-handed as he drove. Then, to Cesc's surprise, Silva leaned over the seat and held out a wireless earpiece to _him_.

"You'll just copy off my feed," Silva said. He added, half-distracted, "We've got to get you a communicator."

Cesc slid it on. There was a faint, humming buzz. Silva tapped at his handheld, then at his earpiece – Cesc's crackled – and said, "Higuaín? Silva here."

There was a burst of static, then a voice saying right in Cesc's ear, "Silva?"

"We got your call, we're on Calle de Avila heading for Castellana. Sync your GPS?"

"Sure," Higuaín said. "We're right on his tail, east on Calle de Sagasta. Black Audi, license 3151HCF. It's Ruano and one of his sidekicks. You're with Villa?"

"We've got a trainee along, too. Don't worry, he's been out with us before."

A new voice cut in. "Is he any good?"

"Good enough," Silva said in a voice that didn't encourage disagreement.

"You think so? Okay, we'll see."

Silva looked ready to say something else when there was a beep from his handheld; he glanced at it and said, "We've got you. Sagasta and Almagro?"

"Almost to Castellana. Or – no, turn!"

"Fuck, what are they doing?" the second voice said.

"I don't – _watch out_ –"

"Shit, no – "

A resounding screech almost made Cesc tear the wire from his ear. "Higuaín?" Silva said sharply. "Higuaín?"

No answer.

Silva jabbed at the handheld and then said tersely, "They're not moving."

Villa's eyes were glued to the road as he swerved between two other cars. "Stay after Ruano or call it in?"

"We don't have a tracker on him," Silva said. He hesitated. "But the bureau's been after him for ages, he's the lynchpin, he can get us the entire chain all the way back to South America. If we let him go – "

"Yes or no?" Villa pressed as they rocketed through another intersection.

Silva glanced back at Cesc.

Villa said, "If we're going to call it in we need to do it _now_."

Silva's shoulders slumped. He opened his mouth –

– and a sleek black Audi shot onto the avenue directly ahead of them.

"Fuck," said Villa as Silva said, "Go, go, _go_." Villa jammed the accelerator to the floor and the car leapt forward. A bus headed in the opposite direction honked as it narrowly avoided ramming into their side; Cesc's pulse skipped several beats and then restarted at double time.

The Audi zoomed through an intersection. Villa followed on its tail. A chorus of horns echoed in their wake. "Get them off the avenue," Silva said. " _Now_."

Villa swerved around a cherry-red Ferrari and cut across two lanes. If the Audi hadn't realized they were on its tail, it did now, and responded with another burst of speed. There was no way their battered little car could keep up – or so Cesc thought, until, as the Audi wove crazily in and out of traffic, they began slowly to gain on it, and it occurred to Cesc with a shock that he'd never stopped to think that the car might not be what it looked like, either.

Inch by inch Villa nudged up. The Audi tried to lose them between a delivery truck and a sports car; Villa followed with grim determination. The Audi zigzagged across the far lane and cut off an eighteen-wheeler. The truck honked as it swerved and suddenly its broad side loomed directly ahead of them. Villa cursed and yanked the steering wheel around as Silva braced himself against the dashboard. They flashed by with a hairsbreadth of space to spare – or not even that, as they caught the edge of the truck's bumper and ricocheted off at an angle.

Villa wrested the steering wheel around, regaining control. The Audi had put plenty of distance between them. He leaned heavily on the clutch and jerked the gearshift forward; there was a creaking metallic groan, and Villa gunned the accelerator.

The gap between them began to shrink again. Up ahead loomed a sign for the M30 highway entrance. The Audi took the exit lane.

"Don't let him take it," Silva said in a tense voice. Villa snapped, "I know." Cesc's heart pounded. They were just behind, closer, closer –

With a grinding shift of gears Villa slammed down on the accelerator and the car surged forward to bracket the outside of the Audi. There was an awful screeching of metal on metal as the two cars scraped against each other. Villa's knuckles were white; tendons stood out from his forearm. For a minute the cars strained against each other – then with a surge of effort Villa gave the steering wheel an extra wrench and the Audi was forced away, just as the highway entrance flashed past.

The Audi spun off into the far lane. The driver controlled the spin and jerked the car around, and before Villa could react it was vanishing around the next turnoff, almost too late for them to follow.

Villa cursed and spun the steering wheel in reverse. The brakes squealed as the car slid into the turn side first and Cesc was thrown against the window. The exit road spat them out into a narrow street he didn't recognize; he caught sight of a motorcyclist's startled face as they sped past.

"What the _hell_ ," Villa said through gritted teeth.

"Don't lose them now," Silva said. "We'll take them at the first turn."

"I know what I'm doing," Villa growled.

Silva twisted around. Cesc was taken aback by the difference in his face. "Stay out of the way," he said. "Keep your head down. You'll be fine." He paused for a second, then said, "Shoot if you need to."

"What?" Cesc said, high-pitched. He put a suddenly clammy hand on the butt of his gun, where it rested in the holster Villa had procured for him before they'd left. An uneasy part of his mind wondered if they'd somehow forgotten he didn't actually know what he was doing

Silva had already turned back around. They were gaining again, just a few lengths behind - then, just as Cesc wondered what was going to happen when they caught up, the Audi spun on a dime and jerked down a narrow street street Cesc hadn't even noticed.

The brakes squealed as Villa took the turn wide, putting the car into an intentional skid, so that for a split-second they were at an angle to the Audi.

"Now," said Villa, and Silva, already cranking the window down, leaned out and with expert precision put a bullet in the Audi's right front tire.

There was a pop, then a long screech. Then the Audi skidded wildly out of control, did a 360 in the middle of the street, fishtailed into a diagonal, and plowed nose-first into the side of the building.

Villa slammed on the brakes and he and Silva were out of the car before Cesc, thrown against his seatbelt, even fully registered that it had stopped. Villa shouted something; Cesc couldn't make it out. For a moment he was paralyzed. What was he supposed to do? Follow them out? Stay in the car? What if the suspects were armed, or had their own backup, or –

 _Shut up_ , he told himself fiercely, _and think_.

Think. He needed to be able to move, but he needed to stay out of way. Okay.

He fumbled with the door handle before getting it open on the opposite side from where Villa and Silva were facing down the wreckage of the Audi. They both had their weapons drawn. Belatedly, Cesc fumbled for his own. His mouth was dry. Deep breaths – one, two –

Villa was talking in a raised voice. " – not going to negotiate, so get out of the fucking car and – "

There was a gunshot and the sound of breaking glass.

Cesc dropped flat onto the ground without even thinking about it. He heard Villa swearing furiously; when he opened his eyes, his line of sight along the ground led directly to Silva, lying flat. Cesc's heart leaped; then he realized Silva had thrown himself down and was already rolling back up to his feet and squeezing off two shots in the direction of the other car. A spiderweb of cracks erupted across the Audi's back windshield. Cesc rolled up into a crouch and kept his own gun up resting just over the hood. In the back of his mind he was aware he was probably imitating stupid action movies again, but what else was he supposed to do? There was a throbbing somewhere in his torso; with a shock he remembered his cracked ribs. Another pair of shots rang out, and this time something whizzed by close enough that Cesc could hear it.

Villa had taken cover behind a shabby phone booth; Silva was flattened against the side of one of the buildings, protected by the jutting stonework. Cesc, squinting, could just make out the fugitives: two youngish men crouched behind the Audi's corpse. One was pale and emaciated, bleeding from a cut to the forehead, the other muscular and unshaven. They were both armed.

"Give it up," Villa shouted. "Back up's on the way, you're in the middle of the fucking city, you're not going anywhere."

The only response was another shot, deliberately aimed at Villa's feet. He swore. Silva whipped around the stonework, fired a return shot, and flattened himself back against the wall, all in the blink of an eye.

"Fine," Villa said, sounding really pissed off now. "You want to do this the hard way? Okay. But I'm warning you – "

Cesc's eyes darted between Villa and the two men. The pale one wasn't paying attention to Villa. He was squinting at the car. No –

– he was looking at Cesc.

Cesc couldn't hear what he said. He didn't need to. The muscular one swung around and narrowed his eyes, gun coming up. Could Villa see that from his angle? Silva couldn't. Cesc gulped, heart in his mouth, and tightened his finger on the trigger –

He heard a roar, like a motor, and didn't realize what was happening until a huge Hummer with a trailing bumper and one smashed headlight came barrelling down the street and screeched to a stop behind the wrecked Audi. Cesc only had time for a moment of heart-stopping terror before it became immediately obvious that the two suit-clad men who sprang out weren't anything like the perpetrators. One of them, significantly taller, raised his gun in a mirror of Villa's stance; the other took in the situation with a single glance and, as Cesc watched in disbelief, broke into a sprint and leaped through the air, coming down on the back of the muscular guy like a ton of bricks.

"The fuck, Sneijder!" Villa shouted.

The first guy was out cold. The second barely had time to blink before Sneijder was on him, like some kind of martial arts ninja, two quick blows to the solar plexus and a chop to the back of the neck. The guy went down heavy, and Sneijder had him cuffed and gagged in seconds.

Cesc's mouth was hanging open. He knew eyes were huge. Even from the distance, he could see that Sneijder was grinning, an eerie wide thing with a tinge of bloodthirst.

His heart wouldn't stop hammering. Meanwhile, Villa had dropped his stance and was striding toward the newcomers; he looked actually disappointed. Silva was getting to his feet, too, dusting off his suit trousers. He glanced around with an expression of confusion, until he caught sight of Cesc.

Cesc suddenly realized what he must look like, crouched behind the car peering over the trunk. Flushing, he got to his feet. Silva waved him forward and he obeyed, a tinge of embarrassment dogging his steps.

Villa, Silva, and the newcomers were circled around the two cuffed suspects. The first one was still unconscious. As Cesc joined them, Villa said to him in a low voice, "You did good." Cesc barely had time to register it before Silva said, "Higuaín, Sneijder, the trainee we mentioned. Macià."

Higuaín, the tall one, nodded at him, a little shyly. Sneijder turned that slightly disturbing white-toothed grin on him and clapped him on the back, hard enough to set him off balance. "Hey, Macià, welcome to the bureau, nice to meet you. You like that?"

"Uh, yeah," Cesc said, because he wasn't stupid enough to say no, and also because it had been pretty badass.

Villa looked about as impressed as Cesc expected, which was not at all. "He's not your groupie," he said. "You keep showing off and get yourself nailed, I'm not gonna cry over you."

"No need to be jealous, Villa," Sneijder said with what sounded like total sincerity.

Villa's hackles visibly went up. "I don't see anything to be jealous of."

Sneijder looked genuinely confused. "Um," Higuaín said in a quiet voice. "Should we take them in now?"

The pale one was glaring at them with bloodshot eyes. Sneijder nudged him with one foot and he snarled around the cloth stuffed in his mouth.

"I guess," Silva started to say, and then stopped, turning toward the mouth of the street. Cesc had only registered the far-off wail of a siren with half an ear; suddenly, it was much louder, and he realized it was coming in their direction. Not a minute later, three police cars piled into the street, one after another, and braked a distance away.

"Time for the fun part," Sneijder said. Cesc honestly couldn't tell if he was serious or not.

Then the door of the first car opened, and a tall guy who looked vaguely familiar climbed out.

"What the hell," Villa said, at the same time Silva said in a high voice, " _Again?_ "

Tall guy pushed his sunglasses up his forehead and the face clicked in Cesc's memory, just as the guy caught sight of them. First he looked surprised, then suspicious, then disturbingly cheerful.

"We've got to stop running into each other like this," he called.

Sneijder looked at Villa and Silva. "You know a cop?"

Silva, sighing, said, "That's Detective Inspector Morientes." Sneijder's face remained blank, but Higuain suddenly looked interested.

Morientes loped toward them, a lone plainclothed figure amidst the police uniforms. There was an amiable smile on his face, again. "This is interesting," he said, when he was close enough to be heard, looking around the little cluster. His gaze came to rest on Cesc. "Nice to see you again – " a minute pause, " – Macià."

"Uh, yeah," Cesc said. "You – you too."

"Were you just in the area," Silva said mildly, "or did you hear about this one over our comm network, too?"

Morientes whistled. "Ouch," he said. "As a matter of fact, I got it from the local beat cop. While I was on the way to your headquarters to answer some questions. So Žigić was in it with Tamudo, huh?"

Silva's face did a funny little spasm. "Mori, I promise there's nothing we're keeping from you on that one. I know that hasn't always been the case, but this time we know as much as you or anyone else." He looked at Villa, but Villa either didn't notice or didn't have anything to say; he was watching Morientes.

"Really," Morientes said. "Because it seems pretty funny to me that you two just _happened_ to be tracking a guy like Žigić, who just _happened_ to be sprung by a bunch of thugs who just _happened_ to be part of Tamudo's gang."

Silva scrubbed at his hair. "I know how it looks, but – "

"If Tamudo's staking territory in Madrid now, we need to know everything," Morientes said, not smiling any more. "There's no time for games."

"Hey," Sneijder interrupted. "What does this have to do with our case?"

Morientes and Silva both ignored him. "Mori," Silva said, "we're not jerking you around, I swear. Žigić is a small-timer we were supposed to take down because of stupid red tape. This time there's no, no huge conspiracy or anything. I'm not – I'm telling you the truth."

Morientes said, "We'll see."

" _Hello_ ," Sneijder said. Silva and Morientes turned on him with twin expressions of irritation. "You can sort this out later, right?" He gave Morientes a dismissive glance. "Thanks for your help... whoever you are, but we've got this, so you can take your boys and head home."

"Actually," Morientes said, "we've got jurisdiction here."

Villa finally spoke. "What the hell do you mean?"

Morientes produced a piece of paper and slapped it against Villa's chest, smiling again. Villa scowled and peeled it away irritably, eyes moving back and forth as he skimmed the contents.

"Warrant for the arrest of Alexis Ruano on suspicion of trafficking in narcotics, in violation of national law," Morientes said with deep and unmistakable satisfaction. "Falls directly under our authority. I'd like to thank you for your help as concerned citizens in apprehending a wanted criminal. We'll send you an official commendation."

Sneijder's jaw dropped. "What? No, I don't think so, we got him, we override you, we override everyone."

"Have you got any official charges taking precedence?" Morientes inquired. "Because I didn't see anything on record, and if your boss doesn't like that he can take it up with mine."

Silva looked at Sneijder, pained. "You really didn't file anything? At all?"

Sneijder didn't answer; he looked like someone had taken his favorite toy away. Higuaín was more like a sadfaced puppy, all big liquid eyes. "Rule of law," Morientes said cheerfully, "it's a beautiful thing." He snagged the paper back from Villa, folded it in quarters, and tucked it in his shirt pocket. "Any time you want to talk about Žigić, I'm ready to listen." He gave them a wave and turned on his heel, walking back to the police cars. A moment later, a detachment of uniforms moved toward them.

Silva and Villa retreated to the car; Cesc followed. Sneijder didn't move, until Higuaín tugged on his sleeve and said something too quiet for Cesc to catch; then he abandoned the perpetrators with one last look over his shoulder and followed them, dragging his feet as he went.

Silva raked a hand through his hair. "The one time we're not even hiding anything..."

Higuaín said, sounding vaguely ill, "Raúl's going to kill us."

"I can't believe they can do that," Sneijder said. "I can't..." He trailed off, and looked sadly in the direction of the police, who were prodding the pale suspect to his feet.

"Believe it," Villa said with a snort.

Silva said, shortly, "You weren't much help there."

Cesc felt his eyes go big. For a minute Villa just stared; then his mouth opened, at the same time Sneijder, still wrapped up in his moping, said, "We'd been working that case for weeks. Ruano was _ours_. Without him how are we supposed to get... how..."

"We'll probably get him back," Silva said, though he didn't sound entirely certain. He wasn't looking at Villa. "It's never stopped them before."

"Yeah," Higuaín said, sounding not very convinced. "Maybe."

"Okay," Villa said. "You guys are going to have a lot of paperwork to do. You should go start it." He was still looking at Silva.

Higuaín looked hurt, but Sneijder didn't even rise to the bait. Instead he just turned and trudged back toward the Hummer. Higuaín, following, gingerly patted him on the shoulder, and Sneijder, still slumped, reached up above the level of his head so he could thump Higuaín between the shoulderblades.

As soon as they were out of earshot, Villa said, "What the hell did that mean?"

Silva appeared absorbed in wiping down his gun. His bangs fell in his eyes. "What?"

Villa's eyebrows went down. He glanced at Cesc, then back at Silva. He said, "Don't fucking try that with me."

Cesc was no secret agent, but even he didn't miss the tightness of Silva's shoulders. "I don't know what you mean," Silva said. He tucked the weapon away and finally glanced up, mustering a little smile. "Come on. Time to get back to our real job."

He turned to go. Cesc followed. Villa's response, behind them, was unintelligible and almost certainly profane.

 

Cesc had barely even had a chance to get a good look at Rubén de la Red when he'd showed up to relieve them that morning. He was a good-looking man with longish black hair; when he looked up from the surveillance monitor his face lit up with a sweet smile. "How did it go?" he asked.

Silva blew out a breath, then mustered an answering smile. "Okay," he said. "We got them, or Sneijder did. We just had a run-in with the CNP at the end. Sneijder hadn't filed some paperwork…"

Rubén winced. "Did you lose – "

"Yeah," Villa said. "Stay clear of Raúl for a few days."

"Ouch," Rubén said, with feeling. "Okay. Though have you noticed how busy he is lately? He hasn't been seeing anyone."

Villa and Silva exchanged a look. "That's what we hear," Silva said, after a second. He nodded at the monitor. "Anyway, anything interesting?"

"García is having trouble with his girlfriend and Helguera thinks he should be a man and stop letting her walk all over him," Rubén reported dutifully. "Reyes lost a lot of money on the midweek football pools. They can't decide whether to go for paella or curry for lunch."

Villa rolled his eyes so hard it was a wonder they didn't come right out of his head. Silva said, "No mysterious off the record payments, huh?

"Nope," Rubén said cheerfully. "Sorry. You can look over the tape if you want but it's pretty tame. Need anything else from me?"

Silva's smile was a little more genuine this time. "No," he said, "that's it. Thanks a bunch, Rubén, really."

"No problem," Rubén said. The chair scraped as he got to his feet. That was when Cesc noticed the limp.

Silva caught him looking, and gave a minute headshake. Rubén turned back around and said, "See you." Silva gave him a little wave. The door shut behind him.

Cesc waited, and Silva didn't disappoint. "Rubén used to be a field agent," he said. "He finished training a couple years ahead of me. He… ran into trouble on the job."

"Oh," Cesc said, after a startled pause. "Oh."

"He didn't want to leave, afterwards, so…" Silva lifted his shoulders. "He mostly works in analysis now, but he was trained in the field. He's a good guy to have in a situation like this."

Cesc resisted the urge to ask what exactly had happened. He wasn't sure that he wanted to know, or that Silva would even tell him in the first place.

Villa spoke up. "So what now?

Silva looked a little wary – unsurprising, since Villa had been ominously silent the entire way back. "What?"

Villa shrugged out of his shoulder holster and dropped heavily onto one of the chairs. "We're stuck with this fucking case until Figo feels sorry for us, which is going to be never, so we might as well suck it up and figure out what the hell is going on so we can get out of here for good." He eyed the stack of papers on the table with distaste. "You know much about financial crime?"

"Um – not really – "

Silva knew someone at the MEF; that was about as much as Cesc absorbed before his mind started  
wandering, despite his best intentions – so much so that the change in Villa's tone caught his attention before the words registered.

" – another one," Villa was saying, sitting up straight as Silva came around to look over his shoulder, and when Cesc figured out what Villa meant he hopped up, too.

This time the man was visibly nervous, nearly stuttering as he said, " _Here, it's – it's for – here_." In the background, Garcia rolled his eyes. He fled nearly the second the cash left his hand, leaving Reyes to pull out the second book, make a notation, and return it to its place.

"The fucking counter," Villa said under his breath. Silva, though, was frowning at the screen.

"Do you think," he said, and stopped.

Villa looked over. "Do I think what?"

"That man wasn't nervous because he knows they're cooking the books," Silva said. "He wasn't that nervous because he ordered a perfectly normal shipping transaction."

Villa's eyes glittered. "You think he was moving something illegal."

Silva raised his eyebrows. "Or paying for something else entirely."

Villa was looking more interested now. "What did Helguera say yesterday? Services rendered?"

"Which could mean anything. Something they did, something they provided… What was it Ortiz was hinting at, piracy? Just distribution, or – "

"No way that guy was so freaked out over a cut price laptop. Or dropping a couple thousand dollars on one."

Silva began sifting through the papers scattered haphazardly across the table. "Where's the transcript of Ortiz' deposition? What did he actually say?"

They kept shooting ideas back and forth as Silva searched for the transcript. He went on, "But then what they're doing makes even less sense. Who keeps financial records of their illegal activities right next to their legal books?"

"Maybe they've got a good cover. Hell, maybe it's a legal side business and the guy was nervous because, I don't know, he's cheating on his wife."

"What was his name? Did we pick up his original order?"

"We need to get a look at – "

Cesc tried hard to follow, but he found himself losing the thread of conversation more than once; it seemed like half the time Villa and Silva didn't even bother finishing their thoughts and communicated solely in mysterious overlapping sentence fragments.

Silva had found the deposition and was reading aloud from it. "'Goods obtained via alternative methods of distribution', that's what he calls it, after a three page digression on the responsibilities of government office."

"I say it's a load of bullshit," said Villa.

"But you think he knew something was going on."

"Yeah, since there is something going on."

"It could always be a coincidence," Silva said. Villa snorted, and Silva shrugged, flashing a little smile. "You can't ever rule that out."

"Well, it's going to be hard to get any kind of solid evidence from inside this fucking box," Villa said.

Cesc sat up straight. "Can we tail them?"

Villa gave him a look. "Yeah," he said, "we can tail them all the way to the paella stand."

Silva snorted, then turned it into a cough when Cesc gave him a betrayed look. "We haven't been watching them long enough yet," he said, relenting."At the very least we'll have to wait until we can match an order with an off-record payment and see what we can figure out from that. If we can find some kind of pattern, maybe figure out how to identify which orders are abnormal, then – well, at least we'll run it by Figo and see what he says."

"He'll probably give it to someone else," Villa said, pessimistically.

"Maybe not," Silva said, like he wanted it to be true more than he believed it was. "He did let us go out today, after all…"

Cesc listened to their conversation with half an ear as he dug around for Silva's friend's crazy newspaper. They'd moved on to someone named van Nistelrooy, who apparently still hadn't contacted them. Absorbed in a story about police corruption, he lost track of what they were saying entirely.

He'd almost forgotten they could finally go back to the apartment at night, until evening fell, the office emptied out, and Villa said, "Come on, let's blow this popsicle stand."

There was a noise from Silva that sounded suspiciously like a laugh. Villa narrowed his eyes. "What? Something funny?"

"No," Silva said, "not at all." There was a tiny smile hovering around the corners of his mouth. "I thought you were ready to go?" he added.

As they descended the stairwell, Cesc couldn't help wondering about the tense scene from earlier. He paused a few steps behind, watching as Silva said something that made Villa smirk. Everything seemed to have returned normal – but Cesc didn't think Villa was the type to forget anything that easily.

"Coming, Fàbregas?" Villa said over his shoulder, and Cesc hurried to catch up.

 

David had been tensed for Villa to persist with an interrogation from the moment he'd lost control of his own mouth. But as the afternoon wore on and still it didn't happen, he began to relax, slowly, until by the time they got back to the apartment he'd almost forgotten about it. Villa cooked again, which was always nice, and somewhere in the middle of the meal Villa and Cesc got in an argument about the Spanish and English football leagues that had the potential to keep them occupied all evening long. Since David liked football plenty but not enough to fight over it, he cleaned up instead, letting the claims of fouls and diving and long balls fly past him.

When Cesc's head started to jerk irregularly, Villa told him brusquely to go to sleep, and Cesc didn't even protest, just shuffled out of the kitchen. David took his seat at the table, laptop at hand but unopened. He should check if there were any new developments in London, or Barcelona – but it had been a long day.

A small part of him wondered if, maybe – He didn't let himself finish the thought.

Then Villa pinned him with a single look and said, "So, want to tell me what the hell that was about?"

David said automatically, "What?" and then as his stomach plummeted, "What do you mean?"

Villa crossed his arms over his chest. "You know what I'm talking about."

"I don't – " He knew that would be no good even before he saw Villa's expression. "I was just, it was nothing. I was in a bad mood, that's all."

"Bullshit," Villa said. "Was it because we lost Ruano?"

David gave a reflexive start. "What? No." He caught himself. "I mean, no, I wasn't – "

"Stop doing that," Villa said.

"Can't you – I was just, upset, and I shouldn't have – I'm sorry. I shouldn't have taken it out on you."

"I said stop doing that," Villa said savagely. "God damn it, Silva, if you're angry you fucking tell me _why_."

David felt absurdly trapped; he didn't know what he wanted to do most, shout or tear his hair out or hit something. Someone. "I'm _not_ ," he said. "It's not, it's nothing, it's not a big deal."

"Bullshit," Villa said again, and David knew he wasn't going to get out of this without giving Villa something.

"I told you, it's nothing. It's fine. I just wanted you to, to back me up with Morientes. He didn't believe me and when he thinks we're screwing him over it always comes back to bite us in the end and – " David drew a deep breath. "That's _all_."

Villa didn't look appeased. "Why?" he demanded. "You're the one who's good with words. Hell, that's just Mori. It's no good fighting him once he's got his mind made up, you've just got to let him run with it until – "

"How am I supposed to know that?" David exploded. "Why should he take my word for anything? I haven't known him as long as either of you, and I can't do anything about that, and I'm _sorry_ , sometimes I can't, I can't be – "

He heard what he was saying and snapped his mouth shut as he felt the color leave his face, pressing his lips together until it hurt.

"Can't be what?" Villa said, and then as his eyes narrowed, "Either of who?"

David wanted to bite off his own tongue. He gripped the edge of the table and said desperately, "Look, I told you what it was. It was my problem. I was in a bad mood. It's just me, so can you – can you just leave it alone, please."

There was a long, long silence.

"Fine," Villa said finally, in a clipped, furious voice. "If that's what you want. _Fine_."

David held himself tight and hunched as he watched Villa stalk out of the kitchen. Then as he found himself staring only at the blank wall opposite, his shoulders fell and the anger bled from him in a rush, leaving only horrifying awareness of everything he'd said and done, and a frustration with himself so familiar and overwhelming it hurt.

Stupid, stupid, stupid. He was so stupid. He dropped his head and gripped his hair so tightly it hurt, digging the heels of his hands into his forehead.

Then, because he was a professional, he took a deep breath, made himself sit up, opened his laptop, and pulled up Nikola Žigić's case history.

 

* * *

For a minute, when David woke up, he couldn't remember why every one of his muscles were tense. It came back to him with a blow and for a moment he just lay very still and tried not to think – like he hadn't been doing the previous day, when he'd let his mouth get away from him in the first place.

There was nothing he could do about what was done, and if he repeated that to himself often enough, he might believe it. He had a job to do. It was fine.

He smoothed his expression as best he could and went out into the kitchen.

Cesc was sitting at the table already, carefully filling out a newspaper crossword. Villa's back was to David; as he hesitated, Villa turned around and saw him.

Before he could stop himself, his gaze skittered way and fell on the counter. There was a mug of coffee sitting there.

He made himself go pick it up, and didn't look up.

"Oh," Cesc's cheerful voice said, "morning, Silva."

David turned toward him and gave him a smile he didn't feel. "Good morning."

Cesc looked at him for a minute, then, slowly, a line furrowed its way across his brow. David turned away to rummage for something to eat.

Behind him, Cesc ventured, "Are you feeling okay?"

"Hm?" Rolls in the cupboard, jam in the refrigerator. "I'm fine. Just tired."

When he glanced over shoulder, Cesc was frowning at him. Then Cesc looked at Villa.

Villa put his mug down. "We'd better get going," he said brusquely, and brushed past David out into the hall.

Cesc looked back at David. His mouth opened.

"He's right," David said, before Cesc could speak. "We should be there at least an hour before they are." He drained half his coffee, leaving the mug on the counter. As he left the room, he felt Cesc's eyes on his back.

It wasn't any better once they got to the site. David took up his customary position at the table, laptop in front of him. Then Villa took the seat across from him, and David's shoulders involuntarily stiffened.

Villa stilled for a moment. His mouth was tight. Then he, too, began typing, with unusual viciousness.

David made himself focus on his laptop screen. Higuain and Sneijder would be responsible for Ruano's paperwork, but they still needed to have their own report ready. He could do it himself; he usually did.

Footsteps moved across the floor – Cesc, doing who knew what. Villa's voice broke the suffocating silence. "Have you checked Rubén's transcripts from yesterday?"

David shook his head, without looking up. "I'll do it now."

"It's fine, I've got it."

"We both should."

He caught a movement out of the corner of his eye, like Villa was shrugging. "Whatever you want."

It was just their luck that Garcia, the chatty one, wasn't in that day; there was only the occasional comment from Reyes or Helguera, or the even more occasional customer, to break the oppressive silence. Nevertheless, Cesc sat curled next to the monitor, hanging on to every word with a frown of concentration. David wondered if he was hoping to find one of the patterns they'd mentioned the day before.

"Take the chair," Villa said, after a while, and got up and moved over to the couch. Cesc looked at David hesitantly. David lifted a shoulder. Cesc, with another glance at Villa, took his seat and began to scrutinize a packet of papers – transcriptions of the surveillance record so far, David thought.

He finished the report and cast around for something else to do. They still needed to talk about Žigić, retrace his steps to Spain, look for anything that might explain a connection to Tamudo, guess what Morientes might find – but David shied away from the thought. He could do that by himself, at least for now.

At the usual time, the office emptied for lunch. When David heard the apartment door bang shut, he glanced up; Villa was gone.

He felt Cesc watching him. He pretended he didn't notice, until Cesc finally looked away again.

Villa returned half an hour later, with takeout. David cleared his throat and said, "Thank you." Villa shrugged.

Cesc kept looking from one of them to the other, like he was watching a tennis match. David ignored it. He ignored everything, except the records in front of him.

Together, they traced Žigić 's whole story: petty theft in Belgrade, an ill-advised attempt at fencing stolen electronics, a couple tourist scams in Warsaw, passport forgery, the mail cart incident, the botched arrest, panic, Madrid, capture.

It was useless. There wasn't a single piece of information he hadn't seen or thought of a thousand times before, nothing to indicate Žigić was anything more than a man with the misfortune to keep stumbling from one mishap to another. He wasn't going to get anywhere on his own; he had to talk it over with Villa.

He opened his email instead.

It was late in the afternoon when David's handheld buzzed with a message from headquarters. He cleared his throat. Villa looked up.

"They want us in to report on Ruano tomorrow," David said. "The earlier the better."

"Fine," Villa said.

"I'll call Rubén," David said. Villa nodded. Silence, again.

It seemed like an age before Garcia and Reyes finally cleared out. David couldn't help a small exhalation of relief, as he got to his feet. Out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw Villa glance in his direction.

Back at the apartment, Cesc devoured half a leftover pizza straight out of the refrigerator while Villa made do with cobbling together a sandwich at the counter. David wasn't hungry. He was debating with himself whether it would look too much like he was avoiding someone if he withdrew now, and whether he cared if it did, when Cesc cleared his throat.

Cesc said, "I'm just going to…" He nodded in the direction of the hall.

When Villa didn't speak, David said, "Okay. See you tomorrow." Cesc looked from David to Villa, gave an awkward little nod, and vanished. There was the sound of a door opening and closing down the hall.

Villa leaned back against the counter. His arms were crossed over his chest, and he was staring at the wall opposite. David realized he was fidgeting with the button of his cuff and gripped the back of the chair instead.

Outside, a horn sounded.

"Have Higuain and Sneijder already been in?" Villa asked finally.

"The message didn't say," David said. "Probably."

Villa said, "He's going to want to know about Morientes."

So what else is new, David wanted to say. He didn't. The air conditioner whirred, a low, steady hum.

"I'm going to sleep," Villa said abruptly, and without another word turned on his heel and went down the hall.

After a minute, David did, too.

 

They left the next morning as soon as Rubén called in to let them know he was safely on site. Even Cesc was quiet; no one spoke, not until they had passed through the security check and into the elevator. Then Villa finally said, "You start. You remember details better."

David nodded. The elevator pinged for the seventh floor.

The moment they set foot in the office it was obvious something had happened. Even the usual frenetic pace of activity was ratcheted up several degrees: Canales and Leon zipped from fax to computer terminal to photocopier and back, while Fernando Gago was typing away with the phone glued to his ear, as in the background another rang insistently. Martínez from Security was sitting at Canales' desk, hunched over a tablet computer. Raúl's door was closed. Amidst the frenzy, David caught Granero's eye and Granero waved them over.

"What's going on?" David asked, as he watched Canales try and answer two phones at once while balancing a stack of papers reaching to eye level. "We were supposed to report to Raúl this morning."

"Good question," Granero said. He was trying for his usual unfazed aura but David wasn't fooled; his shoulders were coiled with excitement, and one finger was tapping incessantly at the edge of the keyboard. "You know how Raúl's been holed up in the office for the last couple weeks?"

David waited. Villa remained silent, so David said, "Yes…?"

"And Figo hasn't even been in Madrid half the time?"

David resisted the urge to look at Villa and nodded again.

"Well …" Granero drew out the pause, fully aware that he had them wrapped around his finger, and then raised his eyebrows. "They've got the leak."

David's mouth dropped open. "For sure?" he said, at the same time Villa said, "Fuck, you're kidding."

Granero shook his head. "They nailed the guy this morning in London. They've been after the evidence trail for weeks now – finally he slipped up badly enough he couldn't cover it."

Without thinking about it, David's eyes automatically met Villa's. Villa looked equally taken aback. "London?" David said, as he tried to remember everything he'd heard about the leak – what they suspected had been leaked, to whom, from where. "But from what Figo said…"

Granero grimaced. "The guy's part of Security there. He's got top level clearance. They're not done investigating, but it looks like there've been leaks from London, Barcelona, Berlin, Milan… He was good."

There was something off about that. David got it a second later. "Barcelona," he said. "The rest are central bureaus, why a satellite office like Barcelona? The big cases go through us, anyway."

"Aha," Granero said with satisfaction. "Good catch. Guess what? That one's personal. The guy grew up here, he did a training rotation with us and he was in the Barcelona office for – "

David didn't hear anything else as an ice-cold chill ran down his spine. He looked at Villa. He had to.

Villa's face was white. " _What's his name?_ "

Granero blinked at him. "What do you – "

"What's his name?"

Granero consulted his screen. "Jose Manuel Rei – "

Villa was halfway across the office before the name was all the way out of Granero's mouth. David reached for him, but he was too late. "Stay here," he said to Cesc under his breath and dove after Villa, just as Villa threw open the door to Raúl's office so forcefully it slammed into the wall.

Raúl was talking with the head of Security, Casillas. At Villa's entrance, he broke off and lifted his head. But somehow – he didn't look surprised.

"It's not him," Villa said, plowing right into their conversation.

"Villa," Raúl said. His voice was restrained. "I'm sorry. I wanted you to hear it from me."

"I don't care who the fuck I hear it from," Villa said. "It's still wrong. Where the hell is Figo?"

"In Barcelona," Raúl said. Villa drew in a sharp breath. Raul went on. "Listen to me, Villa. I know how you feel about this. I'm not – happy. That this is the answer. I wish I could tell you it wasn't."

"It's not," Villa said. "I know him, I know what he's like, it's fucking not him!"

Raúl rubbed a hand over his face. "Did you know he was involved with one of Tamudo's feeder gangs when he was in school?"

"That was – for fuck's sake! It was a bunch of idiot teenagers, he's told everyone about that, it's a practically a _joke_."

"London made several deliberate plants of misinformation throughout the bureau to find – "

"Then someone made a mistake, how the hell should I know how?"

"Villa – "

"You don't fucking understand, I _know_ him, what the fuck do I have to say? You used to – for god's sake, Raúl. Listen to me. You have to, you – "

"David," Raúl said, and Villa choked to a stop. David thought he finally understood that Raúl wasn't going to budge.

"David, there's proof," Raúl said, into the silence.

Villa just stared at him, shoulders heaving, eyes like smoldering coal. His jaw was clenched. One hand curled around the door frame so tightly his knuckles were white.

"The hell there is," he said finally. "You want proof? I'll get you fucking proof. Watch me."

He slammed the door so hard it rattled in its frame, blew through the office, and burst out the glass doors into the hall, leaving them swinging wildly in his wake.

In the utter silence that followed, one could have heard a pin drop.

David realized he was frozen in place, staring at the doors. His heart was pounding. Something cold was creeping up his throat. They'd seen Pepe hours before the explosion. Had he – he couldn't have –

He brutally forced the thought down. He had to find Villa.

Cesc was looking at him with big eyes. He dredged up what he hoped was a reassuring expression. "Can you wait – " he started to say, and Raúl's door opened again.

"Silva," he said. "Could I have a moment?"

David gave the glass doors one last, reflexive glance, before he said, "Coming."

Casillas departed as David went inside, giving David a little nod on the way. "I'm sorry," he said, as soon as the door closed behind him.

Raúl gave him a grimace too strained to be called a smile. "Don't be," he said. "I… knew that was coming."

David swallowed down the bitter taste in his mouth. "Yeah," he said. "Is it really…?"

Raúl's lips were set grimly, so that the lines around his mouth stood out more than usual. He looked very tired.

"It's iron-clad," he said.

"Oh," said David.

Raúl massaged one temple absently, as he always did when he was stressed. "The raid on Tamudo's safehouse was definitely leaked. So was information on our operation in Mallorca, the identity of at least one undercover agent, the crackdown on what's left of Vieri's people – " He cut himself off. "I'm sorry, Silva. This isn't your problem."

He had to ask, because Villa wouldn't. "Does this have anything to do with our – our job in London? With…" David nodded in the direction of the outer office, and Cesc.

Raúl sighed. "I – we – don't know. It doesn't look like it; the lea – Reina doesn't seem to have any contacts in the Moggi syndicate itself, and none of the leaked information we've identified so far would explain what happened. But…"

"Right," David said. "Okay. Do you need me to…" He didn't know what, exactly; only that he needed to find Villa, and Raul had to say it was okay.

"No," Raúl said, "you can go. Thank you."

David's hand was on the doorknob when Raúl said, "Silva."

David turned.

"Keep an eye on him," said Raúl. "And tell him I'm sorry."

The rush of jagged and conflicting emotion was too sudden and overwhelming for David to speak. He settled for a silent nod.

The outer office was unusually subdued. When David opened the door, all activity stopped for a moment as every head turned toward him. Then everyone hurried to pretend they'd been doing no such thing. Cesc was where David had left him. He wasn't talking anyone this time. As David came toward him, he straightened.

"Is, um. Is everything okay?"

David was too wrung out for anything other than the truth. "I don't… know. I'm really sorry. Can you just – I have to…" His eyes were drawn automatically to the outer doors and he didn't realize for a minute that he'd trailed off.

Cesc nodded quickly. "Sure," he said. "You can, um. Take your time. I'll just – be here."

David managed to find the barest fragment of a smile for him, before he slipped out into the hall.

Villa was slumped against the wall. His head was in his hands.

David took one step forward, then another. Villa didn't move. He came closer, close enough to touch, and said, "David."

Villa gave no sign of acknowledgment.

Carefully, so carefully, he reached out and rested a hand on Villa's shoulder.

Villa tensed, but he didn't pull away. So David let his fingers curl around Villa's shoulder and kept them there, as Villa's ragged breathing echoed harshly in the corridor.

He didn't know how long he stood there, still, breathing in and out in time with his heartbeat. Finally Villa let out a long, shuddering exhalation and raised his head. His eyes met David's, and David saw they were burning with the cold, intense fire that he had long since learned was David Villa at his most determined.

"It's not him," Villa said. "I wasn't kidding. I'll get them their fucking _proof_." He spat out the word like it tasted foul.

David's fingers tightened in the crisp white material of Villa's shirt. Villa was fixing _him_ with that burning look now. It drove all thought from David's mind and the breath from his chest.

"Help me," Villa said, somewhere between a plea and a command.

David's chest hurt. He didn't dare take his eyes away; he didn't know if he could have even if he'd wanted to. For a moment, there was nothing but a roaring in his ears.

"Yes," he heard himself saying. "Whatever you want. Just tell me."

The naked gratitude on Villa's face nearly made David flinch. There was an iron hand around his heart; it was hard to breathe.

"Thank you," Villa said, in a low rasp.

David nodded mutely. It was the only thing he could do.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, thanks for bearing with the long wait here. I'll try not to do it again.

"Here you go," Marko said, slapping the cash into Mario Gomez's outstretched hand as he slid into the passenger seat, and Jérôme pumped the clutch until the engine finally caught and they pulled away from the curb.

"Everything went okay?" he asked, eyes on the rain-slicked road.

Marko kicked his feet up on the dashboard and crossed his ankles. "Totally smooth. I think the counter guy's got a crush on me."

Gomez, in the backseat, made a derogatory noise. "You wish."

" _You_ wish."

"That doesn't even make sense, Marin."

"Hey," Jérôme said, cutting into their snorts of laughter. "I'm serious. Did it go all right?"

Marko tsked. "Come on, Boateng, it's not exactly rocket science, is it?"

" _Marko_ ," Jérôme said. Marko rolled his eyes.

"Yes, yes, they took the cards, they gave me money, no one was there, everyone's happy, even Signor Broody."

He meant Toni. The description wasn't inaccurate. Jérôme wasn't sure how much had to do with natural demeanor and how much had to do with the fact that he didn't seem to speak any German.

It had been several days and still no one was very comfortable with Toni: it hadn't taken Jérôme long to notice that even Ballack wasn't entirely sure what to do with him. He didn't know who else could tell. Ballack put up a good front of total control—but there wasn't much that escaped Lahm for long.

"Oh, yeah," Marko said, wriggling around and digging in the pocket of his jeans. "I got this, too." He tossed something on the dashboard.

It was a packet of white powder.

Jérôme nearly swerved off the road. "What's that?"

"What do you think it is?" Marko said. He shrugged. "Said Toni'd know."

There was nowhere to pull over so Jérôme ran the car up on the curb and jerked to stop. "Ow," Gomez complained in the backseat. "Jeez, Boateng, what's the deal?"

Jérôme didn't move. "I don't do drugs," he said.

Marko gave him a blank look. "Neither do I," he said. "So?"

"I mean I don't move them. Ever. Ballack knows that."

Marko snorted. "Who says Ballack knows about this?"

Gomez spoke up. "No one says you have to stay involved, Jérôme. Whatever's going on. We'll talk to Ballack and see what happens."

"Prudes," Marko said. "The money all comes from the same place."

"I don't care," Jérôme snapped. "I want to hear about it straight from Ballack. As soon as we get back."

But when they got the crumbling apartment block, Ballack wasn't there. At first, Jérôme thought the place was empty. Then he heard a pair of low voices coming from the back room. He followed the sound.

It was Lahm—Lahm and Özil.

Lahm was talking, low and urgent; Özil gave every appearance of listening intently. Before Jérôme could decide what to do, Özil looked up, straight at Jérôme. Lahm followed his gaze and his mouth shut.

"Hello," Jérôme said bluntly.

Özil looked at him with that unnerving opaque gaze Jérôme could never interpret. "Boateng," Lahm said. Lahm was the only one who never called him by his first name. "You're early."

"What's going on?" Jérôme asked. Then he wanted to kick himself, because even he knew he wouldn't win any favors going on the offensive. "Early for what?"

Özil spoke up in a quiet voice. "We're all supposed to meet here. Ballack must have something else to tell us."

On cue came the sound of the door opening and closing.

Slowly the others trickled in in their usual configurations. Khedira joined Özil. Schweinsteiger came in with Neuer and joined Gomez; Podolski slouched in alone. Marko appeared to have forgotten completely about their earlier conversation and perched on a table next to Jérôme.

When everyone was present but Ballack, Jérôme muttered some excuse to Marko and slipped out of the room, stationing himself by the front door. He was just in time: moments later Ballack came through the door. He was alone.

Jérôme was split between thanking his luck and wondering where Toni was. He pushed it aside and said, "I need to talk to you."

Ballack raised his eyebrows curiously and gave Jérôme the nod to go ahead. Jérôme spoke quickly. "At our drop off today they gave Marko something for Toni—drugs, I don't know what." He paused, scanning Ballack's face. "We're not… are we?"

"Of course not," Ballack said dismissively.

"Then what was that about? What's he doing?" Jérôme couldn't quite bring himself to ask what they were doing with him. "Micha, what's going on?"

At the sound of the nickname no one had used in weeks, Ballack stiffened. After a second he said, "It must be for his personal use. It has nothing to do with us."

For a moment Jérôme was too incredulous to speak. Ballack couldn't be serious. Of course it mattered, it mattered if Toni was cutting deals on the side, or if he was too fucked up to operate. But Ballack was already moving past him into the room. Jérôme had no choice but to follow him.

Conversation stopped. All eyes turned toward them. Jérôme slipped back to his seat next to Marko. He looked up just in time to see Lahm's gaze move away from him.

"Good news," Ballack said. "We've got another job. Luca's employer was very impressed with how well we've handled this one so far."

Jérôme wanted to ask what there was to be impressed about. Marko was right: it wasn't exactly rocket science. Marko elbowed him in the side, apparently thinking the same thing. Then Jérôme noticed that the no one else seemed as gratified as they had the first time, either. Gomez looked moderately pleased, but Podolski looked bad-tempered again and Jérôme intercepted a lightning-fast glance from Schweinsteiger at Lahm. Özil was as inscrutable as ever. To Jérôme's surprise, Lahm said nothing.

Jérôme glanced at Ballack again. Either he was undisturbed by the lack of enthusiasm, or refusing to notice it. "The initial job was something of a test, if you will. This will be—"

"Just as pointless?"

Utter silence. Slowly, Ballack's head turned, to where Podolski already looked like he regretted speaking up. But if anyone was Ballack's match for stubbornness, it was Podolski, so he crossed his arms over his chest and set his jaw, a slow flush creeping up his neck.

Ballack said, "Problems, Lukas?"

Podolski looked both angry and embarrassed. "This isn't working. There's too many of us and nothing to do. A lot of us are wasting our time when we could be out doing, doing something else."

"We have a job," Ballack said. A dark flush was starting to rise in his face, too. "I apologize if it's not flashy enough for you."

It was already clear Podolski was going to fold, but he made one more effort. "I know it's a job," he muttered. "But I'm sick of doing stupid favors for your friends."

For a second Jérôme thought Podolski had gone too far. Ballack's jaw locked tight and he made an abortive movement forward. Podolski dropped his eyes and glared at the floor. No one moved.

Finally Ballack spoke.

"It's very simple," he said. His eyes swept the room, including them all in his next words. "You can help, or you can leave. Is that clear enough?"

In the end, no one left.

 

* * *

The sound of voices, muffled and remote, wormed into Cesc's half-awake state until he finally came all the way to consciousness. He lay still for a minute, letting the murmur melt into ambient noise.

It had been a long time before Silva had returned for Cesc. When he did, it was without Villa. Silva didn't offer Cesc an explanation; he just led him down another two floors to the most gleaming, high-tech gym facilities Cesc had ever seen. He was so awed that it took him a minute to notice the figure in the corner, head down and shoulders braced, doing his best to demolish a punching bag.

When Villa turned, shoulders heaving, sweat darkening the front of his shirt, for a minute he didn't seem to recognize them.

"David," Silva said, just the name. Then, as Villa's breathing slowly calmed and his expression cleared, Silva went on: "We can wait. If you want."

"No," Villa said, dropping his gloves. Something about his voice scared Cesc. "Let's go."

They went.

One of the voices rose, suddenly, and fell again, bringing. Cesc back to the present. Moving as silently as he could, he got up and slipped out into the hall.

He stopped where they became clear, just out of sight of the kitchen. "—think about it?"

"No." Villa. "We'll keep it."

Silva, hesitant. "David… are you—"

" _No_. Let them think we're busy. Then they'll stay off my back. If he won't listen to me they can take what they get."

A fraught silence before Silva spoke again, softer. "You should rest today."

"No," Villa said. "I can't. It's fine. I have to get started on this."

"No, listen to me, David," Silva said, still soft but urgent. "We—if that's what you want, we'll keep the case. But when I—you wouldn't let me—"

Villa didn't let him finish. "It's different. I had a day already. I don't have time. I have to—" He broke off suddenly.

Silva raised his voice. "Cesc?"

Cesc shuffled forward, into the kitchen proper. "Hi."

Silva was seated at the table. Villa, arms crossed and shoulders set rigid, stood in the middle of the room. His hair lay flat and his face was drawn; his eyes stood out above the dark circles under them. It looked as though he'd barely slept.

"Sleep all right?" Silva asked.

Cesc shrugged. "Okay." He paused. "Are we, um, going back to…"

Villa's eyes met Silva's. The silence was taut.

Silva was the one who, finally, dipped his head a fraction and looked away.

"Yes," he said to Cesc. "We're going back."

 

It couldn't have been more than thirty-six hours since they'd last been at the site; it felt like days. With fresh eyes, Cesc realized how the debris of surveillance had slowly built up over the days: the table looked like a filing cabinet had exploded all over it. How long had it been, anyway? Cesc tried to count backward and couldn't.

No one had arrived at the office yet. Villa took up a spot at the table, laptop at hand. Silva took a seat across from him, making some kind of minute adjustment to the wiretap equipment. Cesc, cross-legged on the floor with a newspaper, couldn't help glancing at Villa every couple minutes. Then he noticed Silva, too, was watching Villa from under his eyelids.

Villa felt it. His head came up, as he looked from Silva to Cesc, and he snapped, "I'm not a fucking time bomb."

Cesc flicked his eyes away guiltily. Silva didn't react.

A few minutes later, Cesc slid another glance at Villa. Villa's jaw was clenched as his gaze flicked quickly back and forth across the screen. Cesc looked away. The silence bore down on him uncomfortably.

It was broken abruptly a few minutes later by the sound of a laptop slamming shut. Cesc jumped. He looked up to see Villa on his feet. "Screw the records," Villa said. "I'm going back to the office. I need the whole story."

Silva's eyes were on his face. "Will they tell—" he started, and Villa bit out, "I'll go all the way to fucking Barcelona if I have to."

There was a long, long silence.

Villa said, finally, in a low voice, "He'll tell me. He owes me that much."

It was a second before Silva nodded. "Okay," he said.

Villa's voice dropped even further. "I'm fine. I'll be back."

His hand was on the doorknob when Silva spoke. "David."

Villa turned.

"The less you let on, the more they'll tell you."

Villa's mouth twisted. "Yeah," he said. "Thanks."

The door closed.

Silva let out a deep breath and slumped in his chair. The heels of his hands came up to dig into his closed eyes, then he tipped forward to rest his elbows against the table.

Cesc watched, ill at ease; as the moment wore on and Silva still didn't move, he tried to pretend he wasn't there. He couldn't keep from shifting, though, and suddenly a floorboard creaked.

It was enough to catch Silva's attention. His head lifted. He rubbed his hands over his face, once, then straightened up.

Cesc coughed. "Can I, um, help with something? With anything?"

For a minute Silva didn't seem to have heard him; his eyes seemed to be fixed on some distant point on the opposite wall. Then, as Cesc was wondering if he should repeat himself, Silva turned to him and said, "You probably want to know what's going on, don't you."

Cesc was caught with his mouth half open, looking at Silva blankly. He did, of course, but—

Silva gave him a half-smile. "It's not a secret. Much."

Cesc got up and took Villa's chair, not quite hesitantly. He cleared his throat. "I guess that… Villa knows the guy? Who leaked all this information?"

Something passed across Silva's face. "Yes. It seems like."

"So…" Cesc fiddled with a pen. "His name's Reina."

"Yes. Jose—Pepe Reina." Silva began straightening the mess of papers on the table. "He was one of David's first friends, here at the bureau—he was here on rotation from Barcelona for a couple months and they really hit it off. Later he got transferred to London, but they stayed in touch. He's the one who—We saw him while we were in London."

It took a minute for Cesc to put that together, and then he blanched. "What? Did he—did you—"

Silva knew exactly what he was asking. "Raúl says they're not connected. Probably." His mouth curved down. "We'll find out."

"But Villa doesn't think he did anything," Cesc said.

Silva pressed his lips together. "No. David's—He trusts Pepe."

Cesc persisted. "What do you think?"

Silva hesitated, a little too long.

"I don't know," he said finally. "I don't… I hope he didn't."

That didn't really sound convincing to Cesc. He decided not to push his luck. "And Villa doesn't think so because… they're friends?"

Some of his skepticism must have come through his voice, because Silva sighed again, and raked a hand through his hair. "It's not that simple. It's… Pepe did a lot for David when—he was new. He was the first friend David made in Madrid, I think. Almost the first person he met, after Raúl."

Cesc opened his mouth to ask about where Villa had come from in the first place.

What came out was, "What's the deal with Raúl, anyway?"

For a minute Silva looked like that was the last thing he expected to hear. Then he looked straight at Cesc and his eyes made Cesc backpedal furiously. "I mean. You don't, um. Have to tell me. Obviously. Since you're in charge. I'll shut up now."

The frightening look went away. Silva's lips twisted upwards as he dropped his head, then raised it again. "No, it's fine, it's… It's nothing bad." He took a breath and said, "They—actually, they used to be partners."

Cesc's jaw dropped. "No _way_ ," he said.

Silva gave him a little smile. "Yeah." He looked back down to where his hands were smoothing over the papers in front of him and made to resume his sorting.

"But—" Somehow, it hadn't ever occurred to Cesc that Villa or Silva might ever have worked with anyone but each other. "But how… what…" He was gabbling. "When? For how long?

Silva didn't answer Cesc for a minute, and when he did, it wasn't directly. "It was David's first assignment after he joined the bureau. He was a cop before, up north, so he was field ready. One of the best."

Cesc could just see Villa the cop busting some perp in a gritty back alley. "Oh yeah?"

"Raúl had been working alone for years, so they thought they'd pair them up into some kind of elite strike force. It was… definitely something." A real smile lit up Silva's face for a minute, directed at the table. "I was still in training, but we heard all the stories. It was kind of, um… volatile. But they did things no one else could. They were good. The best."

Cesc sat back and locked his arms around his knees. "So you'd heard of Villa before you were partners, at least."

"Of course I knew who he was," Silva said. He was still looking down. "Everyone did."

Cesc asked, "If he was a cop, what made him come down here?"

Silva went still.

The question hung in the air for one, two, three seconds. Cesc swallowed. He opened his mouth, unsure how to back out of that one, when Silva spoke up.

"He… It's not my—my right, to tell you. What happened." He exhaled. Cesc wondered if he knew what his face looked like. "Just that I think, afterwards... I think having Raúl around was the best thing that could have happened to David. He had something else to think about, all the time." He took a deep breath and then said, more briskly, "And then he made friends with Pepe, too. Reina, I mean. So."

Cesc didn't need that spelled out for him. He said instead, "So what happened? With Raúl, I mean."

Silva shrugged. "It went on like that for about six months, then Raúl was promoted to deputy chief. I think, um, the damages were getting pretty severe."

"So what's the big deal now?" Cesc asked, frowning.

"They were always—like I said. It was volatile. But David…" Silva was looking past Cesc. "He's very competitive. But I think… It's not just about competition. He doesn't like getting left behind."

Cesc didn't know what to say to that. Silva mustered another smile and said, "He'd kill me if he knew I was telling you this."

"I bet," Cesc muttered, which at least coaxed a little bit more substance into Silva's smile. "So then how did you guys end up, you know?"

Silva looked kind of horrified for a minute, but before Cesc could figure that one out, his face cleared and he said, "Oh. Right. Well. David had… a few partners. After Raúl. None of them really stuck. It's a hard act to follow." His mouth twisted a little self-deprecatingly. "Anyway, I finished training and was supposed to go out to another office on rotation and instead they said, congratulations, here's your new partner, did we mention it's David Villa."

"Damn," Cesc said with feeling, and Silva startled him by laughing aloud.

"Yeah. Like that. I didn't think I'd last more than a couple weeks, I thought… actually—" Silva's mouth turned up, guiltily, "—I thought it was a test, or maybe I hadn't done well enough in training. They wanted to toughen me up or something. But then it started to work out okay, and I never did get reassigned and…" His hand, which had wound itself into his hair, tugged hard and he gave a helpless little shrug. "Here we are."

Cesc frowned. Somehow he got the feeling Silva wasn't telling him everything. He doubted Silva would be any more forthcoming if pressed, either. So instead he asked, "Okay, so what about you? How did you get into this whole—" he waved a hand, "thing?"

"Oh," Silva said. A week ago Cesc might not have recognized that he was relaxing; now he did, and filed it away to remember. "I joined right out of school. I guess it's sort of the family line of work?"

Cesc stared at him.

"Not the bureau specifically, it's too new, but, um, covert law enforcement." Silva shrugged."My grandmother suggested it."

"Your grandmother," Cesc repeated faintly.

"She knew the first bureau chief here in Madrid from when they were in the resistance together." Silva gave him another smile, one with actual feeling behind it, and held out one of the folders he'd been shuffling around. "Want to go over Rubén's notes from yesterday with me?"

That wasn't very subtle, for a secret agent, but Cesc let it go. "Sure," he said. "What's up?"

García showed up not long after, followed by Reyes. Cesc left the monitor to Silva and got up to stretch, taking de la Red's notes over to the couch and flopping down on his stomach. He was getting good at reading quickly, automatically filtering out the bullshit and absorbing the real information, what there was of it.

It was maybe an hour later when the door opened. Silva's head snapped up.

Villa's face was enough to keep Cesc from saying a word. Silva didn't say anything, either, but his eyes didn't leave Villa for second. Villa didn't look at either of them; he went straight to the table and bent over his laptop, plugging a flash drive into one of the ports. He said, without looking up, "He told me."

He keyed something in, head down, eyes fixed on the screen. After a minute, he sat down.

It was another few minutes of silence before he finally looked up. "What've you got?" he said. "Anything?"

"No," Silva said. "Just the usual."

Villa didn't even roll his eyes. He just nodded shortly and said, "Okay." Then he went back to the computer.

At first Silva kept shooting Villa covert glances every few minutes, like he couldn't help it. Villa remained stubbornly focused on whatever he was doing, though, and eventually Silva slid back into his normal routine, rotating his attention between laptop, papers, and surveillance feeds.

Suddenly Villa shoved away from table and to his feet, launching in an angry circuit of the room. Silva's eyes tracked every movement. Villa stopped in the far corner. He took a deep breath, pushing his hand through his hair, then another. Then he returned to the table, sat back down, and went back to reading as if none of the rest of them were there.

It was another minute before Silva went back to his own work. Cesc returned to his notes, unsettled. Somehow he doubted any of them would get much done for the rest of the day.

 

* *

David waited until late that night, after they'd returned home, after Cesc had gone to sleep. In the kitchen, the soft but incessant click of a mouse was all that broke the silence.

David sat down at the table.

The clicking stopped. Villa didn't look up; he kept his eyes fixed on the screen. David waited.

Eventually Villa said, "He gave me a list. Of everything leaked."

David let out a breath.

"A list doesn't prove fucking anything," Villa said. He still didn't look up from the screen; his voice was tight and controlled. "I'm going to check every one of these cases. Since apparently no one else will. If I have to talk to every single fucking agent in this bureau I will. I don't care. I'll do whatever it takes."

He looked up, then, and met David's eyes. "I'll find something," Villa said, low and certain. This wasn't the ragged desperation of the day before : it was conviction, determination. It made David's chest ache. "Tomorrow. I need to talk to someone. Just for an hour or two."

"It's fine," David said, almost before he finished speaking. "Whenever you need to."

"I'll make it quick," Villa said, still low. And then, "Thanks."

He returned to reading. David watched him in silence for a moment, one hand curled around the edge of his chair. He wondered what would happen if he got up and crossed the room.

At that moment, Villa looked up again."You should sleep," he said.

David's fingers tightened. After a second he made himself relax. He stood up, then stopped with one hand on the doorframe. "So should you," he said softly.

"Yeah," Villa said, without taking his eyes from the screen.

David watched him for a moment longer: his hunched shoulders, the tension coiled in his body, the lines in his face. Villa began typing again.

David left the room.

* *

It was maybe two hours into the next day's surveillance when Villa checked his watch and looked at David. David nodded.

"Back later, Fàbregas," Villa said. The door closed behind him.

"Huh?" Cesc said. He looked at David, but David shook his head. He'd said enough the day before: far more than he ever meant to.

"He'll be back," he said instead.

He could see the progress of Cesc debating whether or not to push and deciding against it. "I'll take the feeds if you want," Cesc said finally.

David left the monitor to Cesc and went back to his laptop to check the results of his daily searches. A British activist group was starting to get wind of the fact that the London suspects were being held without any movement toward trial. One of David's hands worked itself into his hair. The Metropolitan police had been a useful shield for their involvement, but the longer they went without progress the more they risked the story getting out. More attention was the last thing they needed. David rubbed a hand over his face and clicked over to his email

He stiffened. There, at the top of his inbox, was a message from van Nistelrooy.

David opened it. It was addressed to Villa, cc'ed to David.

>   
> _Villa:_
> 
>  _Excuse the delay in my response. I'm sure you've heard about the incident with the London bureau; as a former London agent I was subject to restricted communication within the agency for the past several days._
> 
>  _Re: the investigation into Roman Abramovich's holding corporation, I strongly believe Abramovich or his subordinates succeeded in concealing their personal involvement, on behalf of the corporation, in the "accidental" death of a business rival. However, as my report indicated, there was essentially no evidence in my favor so the case was eventually dismissed. I've authorized the release of all subsidiary documentation from the London office if it's of interest._
> 
>  _Whether this has any bearing on your question, I'm not sure. While Abramovich has been previously linked to certain Eastern European criminal bosses, I'm not aware of any involvement with the Moggi syndicate. If you'd like my personal opinion, I strongly doubt a man like Abramovich would put himself in a position to be held accountable—or indebted—to anyone of Moggi's power._
> 
>  _Contact me if you need more information._
> 
>  _R. van Nistelrooy_

David leaned back in the chair, fighting an irrational plunge of disappointment. He hadn't realized how much he'd been secretly hoping van Nistelrooy would provide some kind of key to the whole mystery, unlikely as it would have been. This was a weak lead at best—and yet not so weak that he could ignore it.

He glanced across the table. Cesc was filling out the week's match predictions, one eye on the monitor.

David spread a clear space on the table. He was sick of his laptop. Maybe writing everything out would help him clear his mind. He thought back to the very beginning, trying to focus not only on who was involved but what had happened, and began to make notes.

 _Planted tip—why did they draw our attention?  
Gang working for syndicate: did they know overall plans? Why were they involved?  
Deliberate attempt to avoid casualties?  
Who did Cesc see?_

 _Aquilani  
Cudicini  
Macheda  
Enrique  
Other?? (Cesc's)_

 _Roman Abramovich  
three sep. investigations, one unresolved—death of business rival  
motive? gain?  
ties with Moggi?_

David stared at the paper and then leaned forward and rested his forehead in one hand.

Two weeks, and they were no closer to solving the real mystery than they had been when Cesc landed on their doorstep. With the addition of Žigić and Tamudo—no, Raúl and Arbeloa were covering that. He didn't have to solve everything himself, David reminded himself, he just had to keep a handle on the London suspects, Abramovich, the syndicate in Spain, their actual case—

"Hey," Cesc said, breaking into David's thoughts. His voice, rising with excitement, made David snap to attention. "Hey, this guy's been in here before."

David was beside Cesc in a second. "He was here just a couple days ago," Cesc said. "The same day as the car chase with whatshisname, the drug guy. Remember?"

Cesc was right: it was the nervous one, the one who'd told David's instincts there had to be something deeper going on. Cesc started to say something; David absently shushed him. The same feeling of _wrongness_ prodded at David as they watched the familiar routine of payment and notation: this time the man managed to stick around, twitching, until Reyes was finished with the entry before he escaped.

Reyes watched him go, shaking his head.

" _What's up?_ " García called from the back of the office.

" _Nothing_ ," Reyes said, raising his voice as he slipped the account book back under the counter. " _Your face._ "

" _You're trying to distract me from your football team_ ," García said cheerfully. " _I understand. It's a shame about those injuries, isn't it?_ "

Normal conversation resumed. Cesc looked up at David and said, "But he hasn't actually called or anything. Not since he was here last time."

 _I knew it_ , something whispered in the back of David's mind. He ignored it: instinct didn't mean he could bypass logical investigation. David let Cesc puzzle it out aloud. "He could have been, like, someone else's agent. Or…" Cesc's brows furrowed. "No, wait, but the first time he didn't give them any ID or anything, or tell them why he was there, right? So they must have known him."

"Or it could have happened before we started surveillance," David pointed out.

Cesc made a skeptical face. "You think?"

"Not really," David said.

They looked at each other.

"So there's definitely something funny going on," Cesc said. "But there's pretty much no way to figure out what."

There wasn't. There were no more answers to be found here: they'd gone as far as they could with surveillance of the office. The next step would have to be to set a tail on Helguera, García, and Reyes, maybe bug the shipping bay, investigate the shipments. Would Figo want them to do it themselves? David thought of Villa, and didn't know what he wanted the answer to be.

"Silva?" Cesc said.

David roused himself. "Okay. Let's see. First we have to take care of procedure. We should be able to run a search on his vocal frequency to make sure it doesn't match any of the tapped calls. And I really hate to say this, but we're going to have to go over the content again, too, especially any conversations or visits happening around the time of the transactions. Sometimes you have to—"

He stopped short.

"Compare what?" Cesc asked, but David didn't answer. Something about what he'd just said had sparked a connection almost too fleeting to grasp. As Cesc watched, David rummaged for the daily timelines, flipped a sheet over and began to scribble down the rotation of the three marks in and out of the office.

Cesc looked over his shoulder. "What's that?"

"Times," David said. He saw it before he was finished writing; it wasn't difficult to figure out. David waited a moment, though, with one eye on Cesc. Sure enough—

"Look," Cesc suddenly exclaimed, grabbing David's arm, "look, it's a pattern. Each time they come in, it's after Helguera's been out the afternoon before. He has to be doing something, it can't be just coin—" He finally got a good look at David and slumped a little. "You got that already, huh?"

David grinned. "Good catch."

Cesc's crestfallen expression lasted for only a minute before he rebounded like a rubber ball. "Okay, anyway, Helguera's not around now, right? So that means someone should come in tomorrow. Can we, like, lie in wait for them, or—"

David was about to answer when he heard footsteps in the hall. The door opened.

"Took longer than I thought," Villa said. His face was closed. "Sorry."

Cesc beat David to it. "Guess what? We got a repeat!"

Villa looked from Cesc to David as if to say, _What the hell is he talking about?_ David said, "Remember the nervous one, the one who came in the same day as Ruano?" Villa nodded slowly. "He came back."

Villa's face showed no recognition at first, then his eyebrows went up. "No order."

"Right." David leaned back. "We're about to double check the phone records just in case, but he didn't give them any kind of number, he hasn't come by since, but they knew what to expect anyway. So…"

"And there's more," Cesc cut in. "There's a pattern to when they come in, it's always after Helguera's gone. So now—"

"Groundwork," Villa said. His eyes were still on David. "You going to call in now?"

"I think we have to," David said. "But—" He chose his words carefully. "That doesn't guarantee anything. Even if we try to get in touch with someone now…"

Villa nodded shortly. "Right."

David glanced at Cesc. Something over the wiretap had caught his attention; from his woebegone expression, Reyes and Garcia were probably still talking about football. David moved away, toward Villa, and said quietly, "Did it help?"

Villa's mouth flattened. "Not yet," he said. "I'm just getting started." He headed for his laptop, shrugging out of his jacket. As he passed by Cesc, he stopped and looked down. "Good job," he said. "Catching that."

Cesc practically bloomed. A smile pulled at the corners of David's mouth. It faded as he watched Villa take a seat, coiled in on himself.

Villa glanced up. "You going to make that call?"

"Yes," David said. He remembered suddenly the morning's other development. "Oh, and check your email. We finally heard back from van Nistelrooy."

Villa logged in one-handed, glancing back at David. "No help?"

David shook his head. "You'll see. I guess we can keep going with it but…"

He trailed off. Villa was frowning at the email. "Van Nistelrooy was part of the leak investigation?"

David blinked. "He doesn't say that, exactly," he said, but Villa was already leaning forward, tapping at the keys. It looked like he was composing a reply.

David moved over to perch on the arm of the couch to make the call. He tried Figo first; Figo was almost never available to field agents when he was out of Madrid, but David could leave a message and then call Raúl's office.

He nearly dropped his communicator when a curt voice said, "Yes?"

He scrambled for composure. "Yes, hi, it's David Silva. Sir."

"Silva," Figo said, after a second. "I understand you've been informed of the situation."

"Yes," said David. "I mean. Raúl told me. Us." He paused. Figo said nothing. "This isn't—I'm sorry to bother you, I didn't expect to reach you. There's another development in our surveillance case, but I can get in touch with Raúl instead if you need me to."

"No," Figo said. "You're on the line already. Give me your assessment."

David cleared his throat and gave Figo a brief summary of the day's observations. "If we're right, we'll see someone in tomorrow. Either way, I don't think we're going to get much else out of surveillance, at least not here. It's time for someone to follow up on the ground."

Figo let a few seconds pass before he responded. "Tell me something," he said. "Raúl told me Villa reacted—badly."

Now David was the one who hesitated.

"Give me your honest opinion, Silva," Figo said quietly. "Do I need to put him on enforced leave?"

David kept himself from reacting, barely. His gaze instinctively found Villa, across the room. Villa's jaw was set; he was leaning forward, curling toward the screen like he always did when he was intensely focused. David doubted if he'd slept at all.

David licked his lips. "No," he said. "No. Let him stay."

"You're sure."

"Yes," said David.

"All right," Figo said after a minute. "I'll take your word for it." He paused again before continuing. "Confirm your pattern and we'll proceed from there. I should return in—"

A voice in the background cut in. There was a rasping sound, like a hand covering the receiver, and David could hear Figo's muffled voice answer. "I'm sorry, Silva," he said a second later. "I need to go. I'll be back in Madrid within the next two days. You can report to the office then. I'll be in touch."

"Thank you," David remembered to say, before Figo hung up.

Villa's eyes were trained on him when he looked up. David wondered how much he'd overheard, or guessed. He cleared his throat. "Figo's still in Barcelona. He'll be back in a couple days. We can report then and get new orders."

Villa nodded.

David realized that Cesc was watching him, too. He mustered a little smile for him and got to his feet. "So, Cesc," he said. "How do you feel about taking some of the records?"

David could tell, the next day, that Villa had barely slept again. Once again he was absorbed in his laptop; this time, though, David had a feeling he wasn't simply researching case files.

Though García and the others were quiet, Cesc seemed to have adopted surveillance as his own personal responsibility; he stayed glued to the monitors as they waited for the so-called customer to show, taking meticulous and probably unnecessary notes. David let him. It spared a little of his own attention as he scribbled half-heartedly at a sheet of paper, trying to reorganize a timeline of events and trying not to think about just how little he understood.

"Fuck," Villa said suddenly, out of nowhere. He was scowling at the laptop screen.

"What's wrong?" David asked.

"Got kicked out again," he said. His fingers flew over the keyboard.

David bit back the question. "Don't get in trouble," he said.

"I'm better than anything they've got," Villa said absently. The flash of his usual assurance made David almost smile.

At that moment, his phone rang.

David's heart skipped a beat. He picked it up almost reluctantly, unsure what he was expecting—only that it couldn't possibly be good.

But when he glanced at the screen, the name on display made tension David hadn't even realized was bunched in his neck to flow away in a rush. With relief he thumbed the call on and said, "Hi, Juan."

The sound of Juan Mata's cheerful voice made David's mouth turn up automatically. "Hey, David, how's it going?"

"Honestly?" David said, trying for a small laugh. "It's been better."

Juan made a sympathetic noise. "Want me to ruin someone's reputation for you? Or is it more secret stuff you can't talk about?"

David did laugh then, taking himself by surprise. "More like the second. Sorry."

"Okay, well, maybe this'll get your mind off it. I've got some news for you."

David sat up. "On Moggi?"

"Ready to take notes?" David fumbled for a pen and made an affirmative noise. "My sources tell me that the syndicate's gearing up for something big. Some people seem to think there's a territory spat about to go down in the south, around Málaga. Narcotics."

Ruano was from Málaga. David made a note to talk to Higuaín.

"Someone also hinted that it might have to do with a couple mysterious disappearances lately. Miguel Torres, Sergio García. Look them up. I am."

David scribbled down the names. "How trustworthy is your source?"

"Law enforcement," Juan said. "It's legitimate."

"And you're investigating this yourself?"

"I'm doing what I can up here, but I can't get all the way down to Málaga and I can only get so much out of my contacts here. This one's up to you."

David blew out a long breath. "Thanks, Juan, I'll check it out." A tiny voice at the back of his head was insisting there was no way he had time. He pushed it away. "You're a big help."

Juan hesitated. "David, normally I wouldn't ask but— you know what you're getting into, right? These guys don't fuck around."

"I know," David said. "Believe me." He pushed a hand into his hair. "Listen, are you hearing anything about…"

"—the other thing?" Juan finished for him. "Nothing yet. I've gotten a couple questions about whether I have any tips on what really went down, but that's it. Don't ask," he added, "I won't tell you."

David figured as much—Juan was always good about protecting his sources—but he couldn't help a little sigh anyway. "What did you tell them?" he asked, mostly out of curiosity.

"That I had a lead I was working on."

"And…?"

"When I get the exclusive from you it'll be a great lead."

David laughed in spite of himself. "I don't think that's what they meant."

"It wasn't a lie," Juan said cheerily. "Right?"

"Right," David said. "Okay. Thanks for the heads up. I'll look into those names." He could tell Juan was waiting. "And call you if I turn up anything."

"Hey, by the way, you never told me—"

A hand descended on his shoulder. David nearly started; he looked up and Villa mouthed, _Put me on._

"Sorry, Juan?" David interrupted. "Thanks for everything, you're great. My partner wants to talk to you, okay?"

"What?" Juan squeaked. "David, wait—"

"Mata, right? It's Villa." Silence; then Villa rolled his eyes. "Yeah, okay. Look, I've got a couple things to ask you."

David couldn't help listening with one ear; it was what he was trained to do. Villa was quizzing Juan about the Vieri cleanup from a couple years back. David vaguely remembered the case, from around the time he'd wrapped up training. Mostly, though, he was thinking about what Juan had said. He didn't have time for another problem, he couldn't afford another distraction.

He'd manage it somehow, he told himself. He had to.

Villa was ending the call. "Okay," he was saying. "Thanks, Mata. I'll call you again." A pause. "Whatever. Don't mention it."

"What did you give him?" David asked, after Villa hung up.

"Give him?"

"Usually we trade information…" Villa's face showed no recognition. David was torn between amusement and surprise. If Juan hadn't asked for anything in return, it was the first time David had ever heard of it. He said instead, "Did you find out anything helpful…?"

Villa shrugged. "Guess I'll find out. You?"

David quickly outlined what Mata had told him about the syndicate. "I'm going to get in touch with Higuaín and see if he knows anything about what's happening in Málaga," he finished. "It's a long shot but you never know. Oh, and Juan gave us a heads up, a couple of his contacts are tapping him up for more information on the explosion. I know there hasn't been much pressure on the agency yet, but…"

Villa nodded, drumming his fingers restlessly on the table. "Those names Mata gave you—"

"I'll look into them," David said. "Don't worry."

"Okay," Villa said. "I. Thanks." He cleared his throat. "I'm going to get back to work."

It wasn't five minutes before Villa's own mobile went off. He sat up. "Llorente," he said. "Yeah. Sure. Right away." He started to get up, then looked at David.

"Go," said David.

 

* *

Cesc jumped at the sound of the door banging shut. Villa leaving, again. Cesc twisted around to look at Silva, but Silva didn't see it: he was perched on the arm of the couch, clearly lost in thought. After a minute, he shook his head and got up, returning to the table and taking the empty seat. His eyes were still kind of far away; though he pulled a blank sheet of paper over in front of him, he only tapped absently at it with a pen.

It wasn't like Cesc hadn't noticed Villa disappearing over the last couple days, but Silva remained quiet on the subject. Silva was awfully quiet in general, for that matter, absorbed in either work or his own thoughts, so Cesc spent most of his time in front of the monitors. He felt like _someone_ should care about surveillance most, so it might as well be him. He didn't mind it as much anymore, actually; he was starting to feel kind of like he knew García and Reyes. Particularly Reyes—it was almost like having another Arsenal fan to commiserate with, and with the way it sounded like they were playing, Cesc needed it.

Speaking of which—Cesc turned his attention back to Reyes. " _…up by three_ ," Reyes was saying in a monotone. " _It ended in a draw._ "

Cesc moaned and buried his head in his arms.

"Bad result?" Silva's voice asked.

Cesc raised his head and gave a hollow laugh. Silva winced sympathetically. He glanced over at the monitor in front of Cesc, and said, clearly trying to change the subject tactfully, "Is there any sign of…?

"Nope." Cesc flopped back in his chair and took the risk of putting one foot up on the table. "When's Villa getting back?"

He didn't really expect Silva to give him a real answer, so he wasn't very surprised when Silva just said, "Later."

"You can't tell me what's up?" he prodded, just because he was bored.

"Sorry," Silva said, sounding tired. "It's not really my…"

"Yeah, I know," Cesc said quickly, feeling a prick of guilt. "You could tell me about someone else's secret past," he suggested, and then wondered if maybe he wasn't supposed to mention that either.

To his surprise, Silva's mouth turned up. "You could tell me about _your_ secret past."

Cesc crossed his arms over his chest. "You know everything about me already."

Silva looked a little guilty. "Not everything," he said.

"Sure," Cesc said, not believing that for a minute.

"You could tell me…" Silva was obviously searching for something he didn't, in fact, know already. "Um, why you decided to go study in London in the first place? That's not on record anywhere."

"It's creepy when you talk like that," Cesc informed him, but he pushed himself upright. "Do your super secret records mention my gap year?"

"They're not secret records," Silva said. "It's an aggregated database, that's all." Cesc gave him a flat look. "Maybe some of it is secret."

"That's not an answer," said Cesc.

"There's a break between the dates you finished baccalaureate and started at university," Silva allowed. "And a visa record."

"Yeah," Cesc said, "I didn't know what to study, I didn't have a job or anything, I didn't really know what to do with myself, so I took a year off. My friend and I went backpacking around the UK, it was awesome." The thought of Geri made his smile fade away. Geri probably thought he was—

"Anyway," he said. "That's why I went back there to study. I had some friends there already and I just thought, hey, I should try out something else for once."

Silva looked considering. "That makes sense," he said, which was nicer than most people were about the fact that Cesc had basically no life plan. "I was supposed to go to England after training, actually, for my post-training rotation, but like I said…" He gave a little shrug.

Cesc put a hand against the table and eased his chair back on two legs, trying to get it to balance. "How long've you been partners with Villa, exactly?" he asked, out of curiosity. If they'd partnered up straight out of training, it must have been three or four years, at least.

"Almost two years," Silva said.

The front legs hit the floor again with a thump. "What?" Cesc said. "Two? That's all? Then how long's your training?"

"About six months," Silva said. "Why?"

Silva had said he joined up right out of school. Six months of training, then almost two years with Villa, that would make him—

Cesc narrowed his eyes at Silva. "How old are you?"

Silva cleared his throat. "Twenty-three?"

Cesc sat bolt upright. "What?" he yelped. "You're—you're only a couple years older than me!"

Silva coughed. "That's right."

"Exactly how much older?" Cesc demanded. "When's your birthday?"

"That's classified," Silva said. Cesc narrowed his eyes. Silva bent his head, ostensibly to examine the papers in front of him, but there was a smile lurking around the corners of his mouth.

"It is not."

"All of a field agent's vital statistics are," Silva said. "Technically."

"I don't believe you," Cesc grumbled, though he did. He just didn't believe Silva couldn't tell him anyway.

"Don't worry," Silva said, dryly, "Villa's still plenty older than you."

Cesc never got a chance to retort, because that was when he saw someone approaching the office on the feed from the hall camera. "Oh, hey, hey, here we go," he said, leaning forward with a rush of excitement, as Silva got up and came around the table.

It was a woman this time, who didn't so much as turn a hair as she handed over the cash, and shut down Garcia like a brick wall when he tried to flirt with her. Cesc snickered.

As Garcia made a woebegone face, Cesc heard the door open and close behind them. He glanced back over his shoulder to see Villa looking back at him. "Look, we got another one," he whispered, or tried to, though going by the distracted elbow in his side it wasn't too successful.

Villa joined them just in time to see the woman leave. Altogether it had taken maybe four minutes. Silva straightened up.

"I guess that's it," he said. "I'll just confirm it with Figo." He tapped out a message on his handheld, biting his lip.

Villa exhaled, running a hand over the back of his head. He didn't look upset, exactly, but he didn't look exactly thrilled, either. Silva finished with his message and glanced at Villa, then at Cesc, then didn't say anything.

"Now what?" Cesc asked, when no one else spoke.

Silva shrugged. "Wait for Figo to come back to Madrid. It should be—" His communicator beeped and his mouth quirked up. "—soon." He flicked at the screen. "He's coming back tonight. We're supposed to come in tomorrow, whenever we feel like it." His eyebrows rose. "And bring Cesc, too, it says."

"What does he think we're going to do, leave him here by himself?" Villa said, a spark of attitude flaring, but there was no real bite to his voice. He moved toward the empty chair. "I should—I've got some things to finish."

Silva watched him for a second. Then he turned back to Cesc. "Want me to take over?"

Cesc glanced back at his screen.

"I don't mind," he said, and meant it.

They left for headquarters mid-morning the next day. At first Cesc didn't notice anything different from usual—then, as they made their way into the heart of the building, he noticed that Villa's shoulders were stiff, and he was ignoring everyone they passed.

In the main office, Granero the admin told them to wait. Cesc looked around. The rest of the minions were studiously not watching them. It was a little creepy; he was glad when, only a couple minutes later, Granero appeared to receive some invisible signal and told them, "You can go in now."

Inside, Figo was scribbling out what looked like a memo by hand. He didn't look up. Villa and Silva took up their normal positions in front of his desk and Cesc moved off to the side again, where he could keep an eye on everyone. After a second, Figo capped the pen, laid it down, and looked up.

"So," he said. "You have a pattern."

Silva glanced at Villa, who lifted one shoulder, before answering. "Yes," he said. "All four instances of suspicious activity occurred immediately following Helguera's absence, and at least one of the supposed shipping orders looks totally falsified. There's no way to know what's going on without investigating what Helguera's up to, which is why we think it's time to upgrade the case from surveillance-only to a full investigation."

Figo steepled his fingers. "What specifically do you recommend?"

"Obviously a tail on Helguera," Silva said. "Maybe also on Reyes and Garcia, or the so-called customers. and freedom to investigate some of their actual shipments, maybe? There might be something helpful there."

"And you'd like to do this yourself?"

Cesc could see Silva hesitate. "We could… Or…"

Figo turned to Cesc. "What do you think about doing groundwork, Fàbregas?"

Was this a trick question? Cesc shot another look at Silva, who didn't look any more clued in than Cesc felt. "Good?" he hazarded. "It would be nice to get outside more?"

Cesc wasn't sure but he thought Figo might have snorted. "Hm. I suppose that—" They were interrupted by a knock on the door. Figo raised his voice and said, "Come in."

The sight of the newcomer made Cesc's mouth drop open. "Xavi!"

Xavi Hernández gave him a small, tired smile. "Good to see you, Cesc," he said.

Cesc's mind was whirling. How long had it been since Xavi had come and explained everything to him? He tried to count backward and then, suddenly, realized that he'd barely thought of his mother or Carlota for several days.

He made himself pay attention to what was actually going on. "So that's why," Silva was saying in tones of enlightenment. "Xavi, hello, what are you doing down here again?"

Xavi shrugged. "Someone has to be here for the clean up."

Villa said, deceptively quietly, "So you bought into this bullshit, too."

Cesc froze. Slowly, Xavi turned to look at Villa. His shoulders were stiff. "I'm sorry?"

"You heard me," Villa said. He wouldn't take his eyes off Xavi. "Jesus Christ. No wonder this got so fucking out of hand, if his own office can't even be bothered to stick up for him."

"Villa," Xavi started, and then took a pair of deep, measured breaths. "I'm going to ignore that, because I understand that you're upset—"

Villa made a sound of clear derision. "Yeah, sure you do," he said. "I can see it's really eating you up inside."

Xavi's hands balled into fists. "Don't you dare give me that, Villa," he snapped, low and infuriated. "If you've really got the balls to suggest I don't care about one of my own people—"

"He's my _best friend_ ," Villa snarled back, "so I don't give a flying fuck what you think and if you—"

Figo's voice cut in. "Quiet. Both of you."

Miraculously, they were. Cesc snuck a glance at Silva. He had a hard grip on one of Villa's arms and his eyes were darting back and forth from Villa to Figo. Cesc's went to Xavi; Xavi's cheeks blazed color and his heavy brows were drawn low.

"Do I need to suspend you both for a day?" Figo asked. It wasn't a rhetorical question. "And don't tell me I can't afford not to, Xavi, because I can and I will."

Xavi's jaw clenched. "No," he said stiffly. "You don't need to."

Villa didn't answer. "Villa?" Figo prompted in a sharp voice.

"No," Villa ground out, after a second. Silva let go of his arm.

"May I talk to your _trainee_ ," Xavi asked, voice dripping with sarcasm, "or would that be too much of a bad influence?"

"Go right ahead," Villa said, just as acidic. He turned to Silva. "I'll be in Security." Before Silva could answer, he turned on his heel and stalked out the door.

Xavi muttered something under his breath, then closed his eyes and breathed deeply for a minute. "Come on, Cesc," he said. "We'd better talk somewhere private."

Cesc hesitated, glancing at Silva. Silva gave him a minuscule nod. So Cesc followed Xavi out of the main office, down a hall, and into a little windowed conference room. Cesc perched on the table; Xavi stayed on his feet, pacing from side to side by the table. After a second he grimaced and looked up. "I'm sorry about that."

"It's okay," Cesc said awkwardly. "I mean… I heard about what happened from Silva." He cleared his throat. "He… Reina used to be in your office, they said."

"Yes," Xavi said. He looked worn to the bone. Cesc didn't see how Villa could think he didn't care about what had happened. "Villa's not the only one who thought of him as a friend."

Cesc didn't know what to say to that. "So, um. That's why you're here?"

"Someone from Barcelona needs to be on hand to coordinate." Xavi gave a short, unamused laugh. "Right now the office is, well. A mess. Pep can't leave, so I'm the next best thing." He made a clear attempt to shake it off. "Anyway. I thought as long as I was in Madrid we should talk."

Cesc sat straight up. "What? Why? Did something happen?"

Xavi looked actually startled. "With—no. No, I would have told you." He let out a deep breath. "I'm sorry. I started badly. To be honest…" He glanced up and gave Cesc a faint smile. "Madrid is bad enough at the best of times. I was looking forward to the chance to talk to someone who's not really part of it."

"Oh," Cesc said, feeling a little spark of flattery despite himself. "Well. Sure. No problem." A thought occurred to him. "About the, uh, the team, are you, like… everyone must be busy."

"We've got some more help," Xavi said. "Don't worry."

Cesc waited, but Xavi didn't elaborate, which gave Cesc the feeling that even if he asked he wouldn't get a real answer. "Okay. Well. Good. So." He straightened up and didn't try and keep the eagerness from his voice. "Tell me what's going on in Barcelona."

Xavi's answering smile even seemed to reach his eyes.

 

As soon as they were left alone in the office, Figo said, "Do you agree with him?"

David started. "I'm sorry?"

"Do you agree with Villa?" Figo repeated. "That it wasn't Reina?"

He hadn't had an answer three days ago, and he didn't have one now. "I'm—not sure…" Figo's sharp gaze made him clear his throat. "I understand why it's… difficult to believe."

"That's very diplomatic," Figo said. For some reason, that made him take his eyes from David and look beyond him, at some point in the distance. One corner of his mouth curled up, not a smile.

David had to continue: something was making him. "David—Villa—he's a good agent. He won't believe it—he won't believe anything until he proves it to himself."

Figo said, "Raúl thinks the same thing, as it happens."

"Oh," David said, a second too late. "Right."

Figo appeared to be thinking of something else. David ventured, "How did it go? In Barcelona?"

That made Figo return his attention to David. "Informatively," he said. The cast to his mouth was faintly ironic. He shook his head, to himself, and said briskly, "Everyone's going to hear about it. An infiltration of three bureaus and a satellite office is too big to hide. The best we can do is control the story. We did win this one in the end, after all.

David wasn't sure if Figo was talking to him or thinking aloud. He said, "Raúl said it didn't have anything to do with the—the incident in London."

"That's correct," Figo said. "As a matter of fact, he doesn't appear to have sold out any field agents he worked with." He paused and then said, "He saved that for the ones he didn't know. "

David flinched. "That was his mistake all along," Figo continued, almost as if he were discussing a distant theory. "Letting it get personal. Protecting his friends, helping his old boss. If he'd kept it just about money… well."

But nothing would ever have been just about money, with Pepe. With Reina.

David swallowed. He couldn't afford to think that way. Figo shook his head slightly to himself, tapped the folder on his desk, and fixed a penetrating look back on David. "Speaking of London," he said. "What kind of progress are you making on the case?"

None. But David couldn't say that. Instead he took a deep breath and gave Figo a summary of each fruitless avenue of investigation, culminating in the email from van Nistelrooy.

"Hm," Figo said. "And you still don't know how Fàbregas comes into all this."

It wasn't framed as an accusation, but David felt the full weight of a reprimand all the same. "No," he said. "Sir. I'm sorry, we've…" He was making excuses now. He cleared his throat and met Figo's eyes. "We don't. No."

Figo leaned back in his chair. "The longer this goes unresolved, the higher the probability his cover will be disturbed. It was only meant to be makeshift in the first place."

"I know," David had to say. He started to raise a hand to his head and checked himself. Suddenly he remembered something he'd left out: Juan's phone call. "Wait. We have one more lead, maybe," he said. "I heard from someone that the syndicate might be getting into some kind of territory scuffle in the south. It probably doesn't have anything to do with Cesc, but we should check it out anyway. Alexis Ruano's from that area, I was wondering if Sneijder or Higuaín are available for a word?"

"Ask whenever you like," Figo said. "Raúl seems to have put them both on desk work for two weeks."

David winced. "Oh. That was probably because of, um, Morientes."

"Yes, I heard all about that," Figo said coolly. "That's an interesting definition of 'backup' you and Villa have, by the way."

David felt himself flushing from head to toe. "It was—we were ready to turn back, but then Ruano popped out right in front of us and…" Figo didn't look impressed. He finished lamely, "We didn't want to let him go when he was right there."

"I see," Figo said. He gave David an indecipherable look. David said quickly, "By the way, about Ruano's custody…"

Figo waved a hand. "Oh, we got him back." His smile wasn't very nice. "It didn't even take too many favors."

"Oh," David said. "Good." He hesitated. "So, ah, Morientes…"

"I'm sure he'll be by to chat with us sooner or later," Figo agreed. "Now, as for your other case."

David recognized the tone for what it meant—a return to business—and straightened up. Figo said, "Your recommendation is fully approved. You and Villa—and your trainee—will move to groundwork."

David didn't have time to react; Figo kept going. "De la Red will take over surveillance full time. You're authorized for the tail on Helguera and any other persons of interest you feel merit one. However—" Figo's dark eyes drilled into him. "If there is the slightest sign of physical danger, I expect you to pull out, is that understood?"

David flushed. "Yes, sir."

"Good," Figo said. "This is still a preliminary investigation, Silva, so I don't want any damage claims, either. You'll have Cazorla and Capdevila on call for you." Both made sense—Capdevila would be on his own until Senna was fit for duty again, and Santi Cazorla was a floating agent. Figo picked up his folder again. "You'll find Higuaín in Records Processing. Good luck."

There was no sign of Villa outside Figo's office; he must still be in Security. David took the elevator to the seventh floor and keyed in his passcode.

As always, the low lighting made him blink, more than once, to adjust. He scanned the room, past the line of workstations, the cameras the big screen where a small group of Security personnel were clustered. Where—

There, over in the far corner, was who David was looking for. Villa was leaning forward, halfway over Casillas' desk; Casillas looked almost trapped. David made his way over, avoiding several wires trailing from Codina's desk, until Casillas' voice became audible.

"—busy for everyone, Villa, I don't have time for—"

"Look, I'm not asking for much, just—"

David could see Martínez listening in, not very subtly. He saw David looking and grinned, unrepentantly, raising a hand to wave David over. David gave Villa and Casillas one last glance and detoured over to Martínez' desk.

"Hey, Silva," Martínez said, giving him a wide, happy grin, "twice in two weeks, lucky us. How's your trainee working out?"

"Not bad," David said cautiously. "It's been low-key, though, we're just doing surveillance."

"Right," Martínez said, nodding, "the little transport office. I did the cameras on that site." He nodded over in the direction of Casillas' desk and said in what was probably supposed to be a surreptitious voice, "So then what's Villa up to? I heard from Fer—Fernando Llorente—that he's going around interrogating everyone who'll stand still for more than five seconds about all these weird old cases."

"He's working on a… project," David said. He searched quickly for a subject change. "But Javi, I wanted to ask you about something. Macià still hasn't got his communicator. I put in the tech request on the first day, which must have been… five, six days ago? Know anything about that?"

"Oh," Martínez said, wincing, "we're kind of backed up. Sorry. I'll get it put through, okay?"

They'd never put in any such request. David said without the slightest bit of shame, "Thanks, that would be great." He glanced back over at Casillas' desk. Casillas had thrown his hands up in the air and was shaking his head; it meant he was caving. "I better go rescue Casillas. I'll drop by if we need anything else, okay?"

"You know where to find me," Martínez said, waving.

Villa was already turning away from Casillas' desk, though, looking satisfied. He caught sight of David and began to move toward him; by silent consent neither spoke until they were back in the empty white hall.

Villa punched the elevator button and leaned back against the wall. David asked carefully, "Did it go well?"

"I think so," Villa said. He didn't offer anything else, so David didn't ask.

Instead he said, "Figo gave us the go-ahead to do the tail ourselves."

Villa's head came up. "We're doing what?"

"Rubén's going to take over surveillance," David said. "We're in charge of running everything on the ground ourselves. We've got Capdevila and Cazorla for extra bodies if we need them."

"Right," Villa said, after a minute. "Okay."

"You won't have to stop," David said, before he could stop himself. "We'll figure something out. Don't worry."

Villa's gaze snapped back to him. David wanted to stroke the lines away from around his eyes. He held himself very still and didn't look away. "Yeah," Villa said eventually, and again, quieter, "Yeah. I know we will." He shook his head, as if to himself and looked up at David again. "That all?"

"Yes," said David. "No, wait—before we go get Cesc I want to go talk to Higuaín about Ruano. Figo said Raúl's put him and Sneijder on desk work for a couple weeks."

That, at least, got a faint twitch of the lips from Villa. "Desk work."

David, feeling mildly guilty for doing so, gave him a sideways smile. "Yeah. Be nice."

Villa tapped his closed hand against David's shoulder. "I'm always nice."

Records Processing was on the first floor, in the hall off the lobby. David knocked on the doorframe, then poked his head inside. "Hello?"

Higuaín was the only one in the office, which was dominated by hulking office machinery. Behind a desk, he looked even more like a sad puppy than usual from behind his desk. "Oh, Silva," he said. "Hi."

David thought that probably meant it was okay for him to duck inside. Villa stopped just inside, leaning against the doorframe. "How's this, um…" David looked around the room again and decided not to finish that. "How are…things?"

Higuaín's shoulders rose and fell. Somehow he made even a shrug look dejected. "It could be worse."

"Okay. Well." David glanced back at Villa, who just nodded at him to go on. "Listen, we have a couple questions about Ruano." The name alone made Higuaín's face fall. David ignored the tiny twinge of guilt and pushed on. "At least, not Ruano exactly. We heard Moggi's people might be about to set something off down south. Did you run into anything like that while you were working on his case?"

Higuaín frowned. "Moggi? No. I know the syndicate's got operations there, but I thought they mainly ran their drugs through Galicia."

"Nothing?" David pressed. "No one's… I don't know, crossed Moggi or gotten themselves in trouble somehow?"

Higuaín shook his head. "We didn't run into them much on the case—you know how Moggi likes collecting favors, and the crew Ruano worked for don't like sharing. But that would have to be news." He thought for a second, then continued dubiously, "I guess they could be switching their main point of entry from north to south, but confronting someone directly over their line…"

David nodded reluctantly. "That's not Moggi's style. Not if he can get them to do the worst to themselves." He let out a long breath. "Okay. It was a long shot in the first place. Thanks."

"No problem," Higuaín said. He finally gave David a small smile. "Let me know if you need anything else. I'll try to help."

Villa backed up and David withdrew from the office. "Not much of a lead," he said with a sigh, when Higuaín's door was closed again.

Villa didn't answer. He was looking at something past David.. "Speak of the fucking devil," he said, and David turned just in time to see Fernando Morientes push through the lobby doors.

"Oh, no," David said, before he could help it. Morientes was the last person they needed to see right now, not with the bureau in an uproar and Villa on a hair trigger. He had a fleeting thought that maybe they could sneak out before Morientes saw, just as Morientes' gaze swept across the lobby and came to rest on them.

If they ignored him now it would get him on their back again sooner than almost anything else. David sighed and headed for the security exit into the lobby, Villa close behind.

Morientes was waiting, hands in his pockets. "Hi, Mori," David said. "What's up?"

"Oh, nothing much," Morientes said." I just dropped by to have a little chat with your boss about Alexis Ruano." His eyes were glittering. David bit back a groan. Even better: Morientes was in one of his dangerous moods.

He decided to take this one head on. "Look, I'm really sorry, but it's pretty busy today. No one's going to have time. I doubt you'll get a pass in."

"Then I'll settle for you two instead," Morientes said. He was still smiling. "Maybe you could give me on update on Žigić."

"We're on a surveillance case," Villa said, unexpectedly. "We don't have anything to do with Žigić any more, whatever the hell he's up to in Barcelona."

"Is that so," Morientes said, obviously skeptical.

"Really," David said. "Check with Raúl next time you get a chance to talk to him. He'll tell you the same thing." At least he hoped Raúl would, and not simply refuse to talk to Morientes out of a grudge.

"So you don't have anything to tell me," Morientes persisted. "Nothing new, nothing you might have changed your mind about sharing."

"Nothing," David said tiredly, resisting to put both hands over his face. "I swear."

"Really," Morientes said, with the wolf's grin, the one that wasn't friendly at all, the one that never meant good things. "Not even about those passports?"

For a minute, it didn't even make sense. He just stared at Morientes, until his brain kicked into gear and he was abruptly aware that he was as good as admitting his own ignorance—

—but by then, the silence had gone on too long.

Morientes was staring back. The danger was gone; the only thing his face showed was blank surprise. He looked from David to Villa, whose expression was unhelpful but unrecognizing, and back at David.

"What passports?" David said, because it was useless to pretend now.

"You don't know," Morientes said. "You really don't…" He trailed off, still staring at them. He glanced, inexplicably, upwards.

Then he turned on his heel and walked straight back out the lobby doors.

"Mori," Villa said, raising his voice sharply, but Morientes didn't either didn't hear him or ignored him. The doors swung in his wake. They looked at each other.

"Passports?" David said. "Tamudo doesn't… He's never stretched out any further than Valencia."

"So that's what he was doing with Žigić," Villa said. "False passports. That was Žigić's last line of work before he fucked up."

David shook his head, half-hoping that would clear it. "But that still doesn't explain—Tamudo didn't need to go to Warsaw to find someone to forge papers for him. He didn't need to go further than his own street. How did he even find—"

"Villa?" a sharp voice said behind them, and David's stomach plummeted as he and Villa turned in unison.

Raúl wasn't even looking at them. His eyes were fixed past the doors, down the street. "Was that Morientes?"

David debated for a microsecond over whether or not to admit everything up front and then took the plunge. "Yes. He said he was here to, um, talk about Ruano but we were talking with him and then he…" He couldn't quite bring himself to finish.

Raúl took a step forward and stopped. He was still staring outside, even though when David couldn't help glancing over his shoulder, Morientes was out of sight. "Where did he go?"

"I don't know," David said. He cleared his throat. "He thinks he's found out something about the connection between Žigić and Tamudo. That we don't know about."

Raúl looked at him then. David wished he hadn't. "He's done what."

"He seems to think he's figured some kind of connection between them?" David said, and cursed once again the way his voice went up, like it was a question. "All he said before he left was 'passports', we're not sure what—"

Raúl's look was scorching. "Find out."

We don't have _time_ , David wanted to say. He would have sooner cut off his own tongue. "Yes, sir," he said instead.

Villa spoke up. "You're not going to get one over on Morientes on this one."

"Don't push me, Villa," Raúl bit out. He, too, turned on his heel and stalked away, vanishing back into the depths of headquarters.

David rubbed both hands over his eyes. He'd have to try and get ahold of Raúl Albiol; maybe he'd know something. He'd have to—

He took his hands away. Villa's arms were crossed over his chest and he was frowning at some point on the wall. "Okay," David said. "We better go get Cesc and get started on our actual official case." Villa didn't answer. "David?"

"That safehouse raid," Villa said. His head came up and he met David's eyes. "The one that put us onto Žigić. It was one of the things that was leaked, wasn't it."

David went still with surprise. "Do you think…?"

"I don't know," Villa said. "But I'm going to find out."


End file.
